Instructor: Jacquie Atherton
Community: Grades K-6, 30-35 minutes
Plan Creation Date: January 17, 2016
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Listening
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Seated Belly Breathing – Feel the weight of your body in your chair. Make your legs heavy, feel the gravity holding you to the earth. Picture a solid rock that goes deep into the earth and imagine how heavy that rock is.
- Seated Pulse Count – Find your pulse and then listen to the rhythm of the heart. Picture a big drum with a large stick and each time you hear your heart beat, imagine playing that big deep note on the drum. Play the drum for 20 beats.
- Pinwheel Breathing – With a small pinwheel, demonstrate how to make the pinwheel turn with the breath. Have one of the students come up and lead the group inhaling and exhaling for 3 times.
Activate
- Roots – With your belly activated, circle right and left. Notice how your feet ground in and help you balance. Imagine circling around someone who is at the center of your life.
- Star Pose – Have the children spread out around the room and be shining stars. Have them spread their arms out to each other and see the stars in the room.
- Crescent Moon – Now bring the arms overhead and bend to the side to one side to be a sky full of moons, then the other side.
- Trust Walk and Sensory Adventure – Ask one volunteer to come to the front of the room. Have that student hold the index finder of one hand out and ask the student to shut his or her eyes. Then, with your index finger, hook onto the student’s finger. Then demonstrate the activity for the other students. Then have the other students do the same thing and let them know they’ll have a “Surprise” guide. After the students have lead each other for 3-5 minutes have them switch.
Calm
- Calm Voice Activity Sheet
- Sharing – Then have children share what they could hear when they listened to the calm voice inside.