I often use stuffed animals when teaching children yoga, especially pre-school and elementary aged kids. They love the classes when I bring a bag full of various stuffed animals that we get to play with. But using stuffed animals in a yoga class is more than just a way to entertain children. There are numerous educational reasons to employ these cute and cuddly helpers. Stuffed animals help to:
- focus attention
- inspire discussions
- guide story topics
- develop fine motor skills
- stimulate tactile learners
- provide visual cues to poses
Here are a few ways I use stuffed animals to teach kids yoga.
They are great for teaching belly breathing when everyone lies down and places the stuffy on their abdomen. They then try to make the stuffy swim (rise up and down) using their breath. This is a wonderfully visual way to teach correct breathing technique.
I also use them to represent the various poses we are going to perform during our class. For example when teaching the yoga adventure story The Pet Store I will use a cat, dog, rabbit, parrot, gold fish, etc. Sometimes they are:
- hidden in a bag that the children get to reach into and pull out, one at a time
- lined up in a row and we’ll do them in order (this works very well for Autistic children or others needing form, organization & logic)
- distributed (one per child) and then we work around the group, performing each pose in turn
I also have a posable Babar elephant who helps to demonstrate various poses. Often before I go to use him in class I have to track him down in the house as my children will rob the yoga class props stash looking for him to play with. He is actually very fun, and I have even used him in adult classes.
Then of course, there are various puppets that are fun to pull out and use to tell stories, make comments, sing silly songs, etc. Kids love puppets and they can do many things mere humans cannot. You can give them special powers, or they can roll play scenarios, which help children process life experiences, face their fears, tap into their strengths, etc. Here is a great article on how to use puppets in the classroom.
There is also a site, YogaZoo, that sells stuffed animals performing their pose – a cat doing cat pose, camel doing camel pose, even a dead bug. They are rather adorable so I had to share.
Teaching Kids Yoga has an article on how to choose toys for babies according to developmental age which may prove helpful to those who aren’t simply going for the cuteness factor (how my girls choose) or for the feel (how I choose) of a particular stuffed animal.
So next time you are planning to teach a kids yoga class be sure to raid your children’s toy box and find some wonderful stuffed animals to serve as teaching aids. Your job will be easier and the kids will love it.
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Oh yes – how often I have raided my kids’ playroom for props and books for a class….
We always used beanie babies for balancing activities. Most of the four-legged types will lay very easily on their bellies on top of a child’s head during standing poses or races, on one’s back during the walking cat game, or on a kid’s belly during savasana or belly breathing.
It’s great fun for the kids to choose the animal they want, or be surprised by reaching into a bag full of surprise animal toys.
I wish I were a kid again!
Thanks for the link back to my blog. I haven’t seen YogaZoo before, looks like fun.
I love using stuffed animals too it helps those of us who are visual people too. I like to try to balance stuffy on the kids as their doing a pose. It gets the kids to hold the poses too.
One thing about stuffed animals they take a little more care to clean than plastic. I usually end up hand washing them so I’m not carrying germs from one class to another. Have you ever tried machine washing?