Yoga

Namaste

The week before spring break, and the week after we stepped back to breathe, stretch, and remain strong with a Yoga lesson. We started the first lesson learning about the traditional Yogic gesture (or mudra) of namaste, and in the simplest of terms, its meaning as a greeting straight from the heart and reciprocated accordingly, "The God in me greets the God in you, The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you". In other words, it recognizes the equality of all, and pays honor to the sacredness of all.We talked about what this meant, and it was very sweet to hear the kids understanding of its meaning.
Aside from their excitement for break, and excitement to be back, it was quite beautiful to feel the overall peace and commitment amongst the children during this lesson, and the overall understanding and respect for its meaning as they put their hands together and bowed to one another.

Yoga Pretzels

This past summer I found a great product/teaching tool to incorporate Yoga in P.E.Whether during Stations, or group Yoga work, I have found many uses for my Yoga Pretzel cards. (*I would also highly recommend these cards as something you could use at home. The deck of cards presents individual poses easy enough for students to read and follow along with pictures, but the card deck also has suggestions for yoga activities/games you can do with your child.)
During one of the Yoga lessons, we arranged ourselves in a circle, paid our respect to one another with the namaste greeting, and set forth on a Yoga circle challenge. At each spot, a Yoga Pretzel card was hiding underneath, and for one minute the student studied the card (4 step instructions complete with pictures of each step on back!), and held the pose for as long and as strong as they could. We then rotated to the next spot, and continued on with each pose. The students were very focused and surprised by either their strength, or the challenging aspect of each pose. Some of the poses we did were basic and some were more challenging. Amongst the favorites were "The Warrior II", Turtle, Dolphin, and Tree pose, but overall I was utterly impressed by the students commitment to each pose, and the respect for trying something new.

Here are a few pictures of 4th Grade doing some of the poses we worked on:

WARRIOR I

TREE

DOLPHIN

ARROW

AIRPLANE

DRAGON

SHARK

FISH

TURTLE

DANCER

BOAT

PLANK