The other day I was teaching a kids yoga class and one of the kids accused, “Hey, we’re doing Math!”
Darn it, he caught me. In almost every kids or teens yoga class I teach I tend to sneak in core subjects like math, science, social studies and language arts. For the most part the students are so involved with the poses, the breathing and having fun they don’t realise the basic skills they are applying. It’s kinda like the vegetables I sneak into our family’s marinara sauce – please don’t tell my children it’s good for them.
I was thrilled when I discovered this fun video of algebra symbols done using yoga as an extra credit assignment. The fact that the ladies had a good sense of humour and used Barbies makes it a classic.
See Calculating Area and Pythagorean Theoremfor other ways to incorporate yoga with math classes. When you use yoga during traditional subjects you engage students’ kinesthetic learning abilities and involve more senses. This leads to greater understanding and retention, especially as more and more abstract concepts are introduced in class. This helps students move from concrete to abstract operations with greater ease and according to their individual biological and maturational factors (see Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages). But that’s really enough educational psychology for today.
To see yoga applied across the curriculum visit the Yoga Classroom page.
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This is absolutely fabulous – we love combining school curricula with yoga.
Here is something fairly simple we do with younger children just learning to use a ruler for measurements. At the start of our yoga session together, I have the children partner up. One partner comes into a forward bend. The other partner uses a ruler to measure the distance between the fingertips and the toes or floor (this can also be done in a Sitting Forward Bend). Each child records his own measurement in his yoga journal. Discussion ensues about non-violence to our bodies and not competing with others, focusing on our own progress. Over the course of the session, partners continue to use the same process to record what typically will amount to improvements over time. It’s so much fun to see how excited the children are with their program – and it serves as further encouragement to keep practicing at home.
Thanks again – will post this on our facebook page @childlightyoga as well.
Lisa Flynn – ChildLight Yoga
http://www.childlightyoga.com
http://www.thekidyogaresource.com
Love the Barbie Video. Great find.