[currentuser role=”instructor_level”]
Instructor: Susan Dannen
Community: Older Elementary/Middle School Ages, School Setting, 45-60 minutes
Plan Creation Date: November 4, 2014
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Community
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Start soft music and dim lights in room
- Belly Breathing – with the Hoberman sphere. Class will decide on number of breaths as a community for the exercise – discuss how they will breathe together as a community. Student leader will use Hoberman sphere for the selected number of breaths. Compliments to leader.
- Zynergy Chime – student will lead, focus on students listening to when they can no longer hear the chime – raise hands when no longer hear chime – repeat 2 times. Compliments to the leader.
- Review Yoga Calm Rules
Active
- 15 Minute Chair Flow – Emphasize Community with poses
- Pulse Count – Relax into your chair and find your pulse. Be still and think of how all of your hearts are beating together in the room
- Student leader for flow in front of room, with music in background – comment on how we are flowing together in the poses
- Volcano Breath – Standing by chair – feel breath rising up – can give a quiet “shout out” to a friend inside or outside the room
- Roots – stand with feet hip-width and feet facing forward – as you rock back and forth feel the four corners of your feet, as your rocking getting smaller feel yourself becoming more still as you find your center
- Mountain Pose – feel your feet grounded strongly on the four corners as you hug your body in – Feel the strength and stillness in your body
- Continue rest of Chair Flow – emphasize how we are all moving together
- Tree Pose – After chair pose in sequence add Tree pose – ask students to go back to the four corners of their feet and “feel” their center again. Have them imagine the students and teachers in their classroom holding their right leg steady as they lift their left leg up and slide their foot up to just below their knee – remind students not to go up to their knee because we want them to be gentle to their knee.
- After flow – have students move to front of room to create a “circle” and let them know that we will act out a story. Tell the story of a wizard who gets angry with the trees in the forest because he trips over their large roots. Instruct students in tree pose – say how the wizard sends a mighty wind to blow the trees over – have them notice how it feels to try and stay in tree with the “wind” – switch leg during wind blowing. Go on to say that the trees had an idea to lock their branches together to withstand the wind together – move students into group tree pose and see how this helps the whole group be strong when the wind blows. End story with the trees celebrating.
- Compliments to leaders
Calm
- Chime and Belly Breathing – Return to sitting in chair for Repeat of Chime and Belly Breathing with Hoberman sphere
- Discuss how supporting each other in classroom helps all of us cope with hard times
- 1 Minute Relaxation – rest head on desk on top of hands – ask students to imagine being a tree in a warm, sunny, forest with a community of trees gently touching each others’ branches and swaying together