Whenever I teach yoga to kids and teens I talk anatomy. What part of your body is working in this pose? Can you feel that in your abs? Which part of your body do you use when your breathe? are all standard questions even for Pre-School and Kindergarten aged students. I keep the questions and discussions age appropriate realizing that 5 year olds and 15 year olds have different frames of reference and comprehension levels.
I am a firm believer in being familiar with the body in order to understand how to best keep it healthy and happy. As individuals come to understand and appreciate the many functions their body performs, they are better prepared to take care of it. For example, understanding that a complete breath begins in the abdomen, permits the diaphragm and ribs to perform their functions, assists in getting adequate oxygen into the body, and helps reduce stress.
Knowledge of anatomy brings consciousness to yoga practice and helps individuals talk about their body without embarassement. In fact, recently I taught a group of 20 teenage girls about mula bandha or Root Lock. You should of seen them all blush. It was great! We’ve all got these parts, we’d better know what they do and how to take care of them in order to use them properly, avoid injury, and maintain good health.
Here are a couple on-line resources to help reinforce the topics and activities from yoga class which teach kids/teens anatomy.
Anatomy for Kids
A complete site with movies, word finds, online quizzes and activities is How the Body Works on KidsHealth.com. Kinetic.com also has a fun anatomy game called InnerG where body parts (ie: liver, heart, teeth, blood, etc) need to be placed into the body. As you do so, supporting information and recipes to keep that part strong and healthy are provided. My seven year old daughter thoroughly loved testing these sites out.
Anatomy for Teens
For Jr and Sr High School students more detailed anatomy learning games can be found at Anatomy Arcade with Whack-a-Bone and Poke-a-Muscle, among numerous others. The top level of these games are challenging and a great interactive way to learn anatomy. If you really want to get into anatomy including reviews of iPod and iPhone apps, dissection videos, and learning inter-actives visit Think Anatomy.
During your next yoga class with kids/teens be sure to take the time to teach anatomy whether for basic understanding or more in depth comprehension of how the body works. Its quite a miraculous thing. How do you teach anatomy to your students?
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Nice Donna! I couldn’t agree more. Tying in anatomy lessons promotes body awareness and the connection between yoga activities (movements, breaths, etc.) and their benefits. When kids start to make these connections, there is a much better chance of the yoga tools becoming part of their everyday self-management activities. Thanks for all the links – I will be checking these out!
Donna, thanks for the links to these anatomy sites. I’ll be using these!
I like using interesting body facts in kids yoga. Like intestines are about 26 feet long. 26 feet is the height of 6 kids around 7 years old. If they lie down in a line, it really brings to life how far the food travels before its eliminated. So you want good food to go the distance.
Yoga is great for bringing anatomy to life.
I agree, Donna. Teaching anatomy is a very important aspect of any yoga curriculum. I find visual aids very helpful for this topic.
When possible, it’s great to have a skeleton in the classroom as a visual learning tool. I carry around of big book of anatomical illustrations to use for teens and I love the “See Inside My Body” book for young children. Charts are also great. Here are a few links to resources.
http://www.anatomical.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1267479387
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Your-Body-Katie-Daynes/dp/079451233X
This is a beautiful post! It is a wonderful idea for you to incorporate anatomy lessons for kids and teens who are doing yoga. Kids would be more interested to learn yoga while at the same time learning more about their bodies. Putting exercise and science together makes both topics a lot more interesting!
Kudos to you Donna! I’ll make sure to incorporate this myself!
Thanks for the post!
Fabulous! I am so inspired. I am currently planning classes for my son’s Kindergarten class and am kind of intimidated, as I am used to teaching growups. But this is right up my alley. Thanks so much!
All the best, Kristyn