Instructor: Mary Tesoro
Community: Grades K-4, Enrichment Classroom Setting, 30-45 minutes
Plan Creation Date: March 26, 2014
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Props/Music Resources Required: Hoberman Sphere, Ready, Set, R.E.L.A.X. Book, Music Playlist Stillness
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Belly Breathing – w/ Hoberman Sphere Ask for a student to lead breathing and someone to count breaths. Ask the class how many breaths they need to feel calm. After breathing, ask for compliments for our leaders. Close your eyes and feel the stillness inside for 30 seconds.
- Pulse Count – Find your pulse and take a count for 10 seconds.
- Introduce Theme – Stillness What is stillness?…When you find stillness, what does it look like, what does it feel like?…Today let’s explore the stillness we find in nature and how it connects to finding stillness within our own bodies and mind.
Activate
- Child’s Pose – Being in Child. Imagine sitting in the forest. Be very still to hear the sounds of nature around you. Look to see the plants that surround you. Be so still that the insects and animals start to peek out of their hiding places and come to explore this person sitting so still in their home.
- Back Breathing – Place your hand gently on your partner’s back. Breath peacefully with one another and feel the stillness of each person. Switch partners.
- Cat/Cow – Come to all 4s with hand under shoulders and knees under hips. Breath out, lower head, and tuck your tail. Allow the back of your heart raise up to the sky as your spine rounds. Breath in, look up, and lift your head and collarbones. Allow your belly to drop downward. It is always important to warm up our spines for movement.
- Downward Dog – Step back with both legs into Downward Dog. Raise your tailbone toward the sky. Inhale “Stillness in body”. Exhale. Inhale “stillness in mind”. Exhale. Inhale “stillness with an open heart”. Exhale.
- Forward Fold – Folding over allow your body to hang down toward the ground. Slowly start to roll up to standing.
- Mountain – Build a strong mountain from your feet by grounding all four corners into the mat. Close your eyes and imagine you are as still at Mt. Hood standing tall over the Columbia River. Feel the sun shining on your head and a soft breeze swirl around your body.
- Activate/Relax Walk – Play the game adding in Tree and Eagle
- Roots – Stand with your feet flat on the mat hips distance apart. Feel like you are growing roots into the ground from the bottoms of your feet. Imagine the wind starting to build strength as it starts to move your body into circling motions. Your feet keep you connected to the earth like strong ponderosa pines.
- Crescent Moon – Stand in upward mountain and imagine the sun setting and the crescent moon beginning to rise. Breath in, press feet down, and stretch to the right slightly, curving into the shape of a crescent moon. Lengthen through the side body as you imagine sending energy from the earth to the moon. Exhale as you return to center. Repeat on the other side.
- Modified Dancer – Prepare for Dancer. Imagine a loved one holding your standing foot to the ground. Reach through the top of your head and arm. Find your stillness. Think, “I am strong. I am in control. I can be still.” Repeat on the other side.
- Mountain and Pulse Count – Find your stillness on 2 feet in Mountain. Take a pulse count for 10 seconds. Notice if there is a change from the beginning of class.
Calm
- Relaxation – Read Endless Stream from Ready, Set, R.E.L.A.X. (Sharing with others makes me feel good.)