Instructor: Megan Lyons
Community: Grades K-5, PE, School Setting, minutes?
Plan Creation Date: November 29, 2014
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Strength
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Volcano Breath – stand with feet hip width apart. Feel your feet rooted against the ground like the base of a volcano. Spread your toes and press the four corners of your feet evenly into the floor. Place palms together at the heart and take a slow, deep breath through your nose and bring your hands up over the head. Exhale slowly, exploding the volcano, bringing your arms down like lava flowing and back to your heart.
Activate
- Arm Swings – Bring your feet together, standing proud like a king or queen. Inhale, bring your arms out to your side then overhead, try to touch the ceiling! Keep your arms strong like a super hero, exhale and bring them back down to your sides. Continue this and see how slowly you can move. What do you feel like?
- Upward Mountain/Crescent Moon – With your feet hip width apart, continue to stand tall and proud like royalty! Feel your feet rooted strongly into the ground like the mountain you will become. Bring your arms up overhead with your palms facing one another, fingers facing up. Stretch your arms up, shooting laser beams through your fingertips. Inhale and stretch your body to the right, curving into a crescent moon. Back to center and stretch to the left.
- Star – Take your feet wide apart and take both arms out to the sides. Activate your arm and leg muscles, keeping them strong, hugging them in toward your bones. Expand your arms, radiating outward. Spread your fingers like rays of the sun.
- Dancer – Stand with feet hip width apart. Shift weight to right foot and grab the left foot from behind with left hand. When balanced, lift right hand and focus on one spot. When balanced, hug your muscles in, making them very strong. Now relax your muscles. How does this feel? Shift weight to left foot, and repeat.
- Plank – Come to all fours, pointing fingers straight ahead and spread out like a starfish. Press down through the four corners of each hand. Bring both feet back into push up position. Lift legs, hip, belly and head until body is straight like a board. Continue to breathe, engage your muscles and expand out through heels and top of head.
- Activate/Relax Walk – Remind students of how we activated and engaged our muscles during the various poses we performed as a class. Have them stand in mountain and to begin the game, telling them to firm their muscles and focus their attention. Students will walk around in a relaxed manner and when they hear one whistle, they will freeze, firm and focus. We will continue to activate/relax and repeat the poses we practiced when activating.
Calm
- Back Drawing – Sit in circle with each person facing the back of the person to their right. Modeling gentle touch, begin a series of pictures to be drawn such as a winter theme of snow falling, snowmen being built, sledding down a steep hill, at the end, have each person draw a gift and whisper it to their friend.
- Twist/One Minute Exploration – Have students lie down in twist. Do a one minute exploration during the pose. Picture a time in your head when you were very strong. What did you tell yourself to be strong? How did it feel? Was it difficult or easy to feel and act strong? Did it come naturally to you or did you have to work at it?