Musical chairs meets yoga. A fun, inclusive version of the classic game combining upbeat music, kids favourite yoga poses and loads of energy. This will be a hit with your group and can be played with any age, including teenagers. It is especially fun for Family Yoga and with groups of varying ages and abilities. Musical Mats is an enjoyable way to improve listening skills and social skills.

Musical Mats

Teacher Prep

Set out one yoga mat per participant. I often do this in a circle, oval or large rectangle with all mats facing into the center. Onto each mat place a yoga pose card. Try ABC Yoga Cards for Kids, The Kids Yoga Deck, Elevator Series Pose Cards, or make your own using our alphabetical list of poses. Have a bunch of fun, upbeat music uploaded to your iPod.

How to Play

Before beginning to play, review all poses to make sure everyone knows what they are expected to do and how to practice the poses properly and safely. Have students stand in a circle on the outside of the mats. When music plays students walk, skip, hop, walk backwards, etc. (something different each round is fun) around the mats. When the music stops each student claims a yoga mat and performs the corresponding pose on the mat’s yoga card. Encourage students to find a new mat each time.

Teacher’s Assistant Variation

Put out enough mats for one per student minus one (i.e. 15 students, 14 mats). Each time the music stops one student will be left without a mat. They are the Teacher’s Assistant and get to help everyone else perform their pose, giving suggestions and encouragement. Sometimes children will delay choosing a mat in order to be the Teacher’s Assistant. Make it understood that everyone will only get one opportunity to be the assistant. If someone really doesn’t want to be the assistant make a pose into a partner pose and go onto the next round.

Partner Poses Variation

Choose a partner. As the music plays walk together around the mats, holding hands or arms linked if desired. When music stops claim a mat and perform the partner pose which corresponds to that mat. This is great fun for a Family Yoga class or anytime you want to build connections and develop cooperation and social skills.

Themed Musical Mats

Pick a theme and choose only yoga poses and music which correspond to the theme. This is great for birthday parties, to reinforce concepts in a school unit (Insects, Shapes, Amazon, etc) or for seasonal yoga classes (Valentine’s, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween, etc)

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I teach a lot of pre-school to Grade 3 students and am always developing fun, engaging, and educational yoga classes for this age group. When I received a set of the Learn With Yoga ABC Yoga Cards for Kids I knew this resource was a winner.

Conveniently packaged in a sturdy box, these 52 over-sized cards (two for each letter of the alphabet) are easy to use, kid friendly and packed with educational potential. I’ve used this card deck extensively over the past month. Every time it has been a hit with students, educators and parents, many of whom have asked where they can pick up their own set.

Research shows that learning is enhanced through movement. The ABC Yoga Cards for Kids helps parents, teachers and yoga instructors develop age and ability appropriate lessons which are fun and meaningful.

What sets this card deck apart is the accompanying instructor card which corresponds to the pose card. Here you’ll find all kinds of helpful suggestions for developing reading readiness, questions to stimulate further discussion and inquiry, and early learning skills helps such as categorization, attributes, opposites and spatial concepts.

Developed by Christine Ristuccia, a Speech-Language Pathologist, this deck of cards goes above and beyond the ABCs of yoga for young children. To truly explore the many ways this resource can be applied to language learning Ristuccia has poured an immense amount of knowledge and skill into the accompanying ABC Yoga Card for Kids Instructor Guide. What I really appreciate is the breakdown of exactly how to use yoga to enhance language skills into ages, from 12 months to 8 years old. I swear the entire Chapter 2 of this manual is highlighted in my copy.

Addriya has generously provided a Learn with Yoga Package Set (retail value of $54.95 USD) to one lucky Yogainmyschool.com reader. This set includes:

• one deck of ABC Yoga Card for Kids
• a copy of the ABC Yoga Cards for Kids Instructor Guide
• a Yoga for Kids Classroom Border

These products can be purchased separately or as a set from the Addriya on-line store.

To enter to win leave a comment below telling how you’d use these resources.

Additional Entries:

• Follow Addriya Yogaon Facebook and comment back here
• Share this review on Facebook with an @yogainmyschool.com mention (multiple entries allowed)
• Tweet it including an @DonnaKFreeman mention (multiple entries allowed): “ABC Yoga Card for Kids #giveaway @DonnaKFreeman @addriya“

Draw date is January 31, 2011 at 8:00 pm MST. Enter often – you definitely want this in your kids yoga library of resources!

Update: Congrats to Bryan who won the Learn with Yoga Package Set. Upon learning of his good fortune he said:

I’m always thrilled to find new ways of bringing yoga to children — I’m actually on my way to lead a yoga and art class for 1st and 2nd graders, and can’t wait to bring the yoga cards in with me next week “Once Upon a Pose” seems to come with me to every kids yoga class I teach, too, so thanks a bunch for all these great resources.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this give-away. Watch for our monthly reviews of great yoga resources to use in your classes.

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Once Upon a Time with a Twist

A cool group activity that you can do with your class is to create a yoga choose-your-own-adventure story.

Start off the activity by telling the first few sentences of a story and doing a yoga pose or sequence of poses to represent the actions. For example, you might say, “Once upon a time there were a dog and an eagle in a boat…” and follow with Down Dog, Eagle, and Boat Poses. Everyone does the postures before moving on to the next storyteller.

The child next to you then adds on a few sentences and presents his or her poses for everyone to do. Each child follows, adding on story and postures in succession.

When you do this activity, you will have to moderate the ideas to a certain extent. First of all, make sure that the story remains decent/appropriate…sometimes kids can get carried away with their creativity (typically with violence or scatalogical humor). And second, make sure the story doesn’t overshadow the postures. The real point of the exercise is to use creativity as a conduit for the yoga poses. Everything should either be a real pose or at least a made-up posture that involves stretch, strength, and/or balance.

This is a really engaging game for kids, as it gives them a fun, creative medium, and they love having a chance to be in charge.

This post courtesy of the Mini Yogis Tip of the Week by Shana Meyerson.

In this interview Shana, founder of Mini Yogis, shares her extensive expertise of teaching yoga to children and teenagers.

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This game helps attune individuals to all the sounds in their environment. It is wonderfully versatile and can be played with one other person, a group, or all alone. In addition it builds concentration and memory. This game encourages open attention as it requires continual scanning of the environment. It is also a sensory game helping to focus on one sense at a timewhich is helpful when working with children with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD and other sensory challenges.

Do You Hear What I Hear

Before you leave to walk somewhere, especially if you are going on a route you’ve taken many times and want to engage the participants attention, ask the children to help you guess the number of different sounds you’ll hear along the way. Then while walking, say “I can hear a _____________” and wait until the others hear that sound too. Keep walking and let everyone have a turn identifying sounds. Keep a running tally of all the sounds. Can you recall each one? In order?

Alternatively you can do this game while stationary. Have everyone sit comfortably, or lay down, and close their eyes. Tune into the various sounds around you. The hum of the lights, music playing in the distance, a clock ticking, air conditioning or a furnace turning on or off, a friend’s breath, your own beating heart. Mentally note each sound, then move on, continually scanning for ones which weren’t even aware of before this moment. After a few minutes, open your eyes and share with the group the sounds you heard.

Do You See What I See Variation

Instead of “I can hear” use “I can see” and point out to each other anything interesting you see. You could also be specific and look only for a certain type of thing. Only red things? Only new things, such as a recently bloomed flower or newly painted fence?

For a complete listing of yoga and mindfulness games visit the Yoga Games Page.

Photo by cesarastudillo

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Stick Art is a creative meditation and mindfulness activity which develops focus and attention in kids. You can use Bendaroos (such as in the video example), toothpicks, straws or any other collection of sticks you can find.

One at a time, each player adds their stick to a central design which can be either abstract or specific (house, animal, etc). It takes concentration and cooperation to carefully place each stick into an ever evolving larger picture. This activity also develops the pincer grasp and fine motor control essential to learning how to write.

Meditation Activities for Kids: Stick Art

Stick Art is a fun art combined with meditation activity.

To do this activity you need a number of sticks. In this case we’re using multicoloured Bendaroos because they help us to make circles.

The idea here is that each person participating takes a turn to put down one stick. They do it silently, without verbal communication.

This activity helps to develop the pincer grasp which is a fundamental grasp needed for writing. So if you have a child who is struggling with their writing abilities, or has poor penmanship, this is a really great game to help them develop better writing skills.

And you can kind of discern what these ladies are working toward as they do their Stick Art. Sometimes its an abstract picture. In this case we have a gentleman with really funky hair.

So thank you ladies for showing us how to do Stick Art.

Make sure you subscribe into your RSS reader or e-mail inbox so as not to miss any of the amazing tips and suggestions for teaching kids yoga in fun and creative ways.

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Guest post by Sarah Herrington.

Bringing out a bag of colorful soft feathers adds instant excitement to yoga class.   Feathers allow kids to see the breath, add a fun twist to bird poses of any kind, and make for some fun yoga games!  Feathers can even make savasana more special.

Pranayama Practice

Even the youngest of yogis can become more aware of breath and the connection between breath and emotions.  Simply holding a feather in front of your nose during kid-pranayama practice (which might consist of Bunny Breath to energize or Take Five Breath to calm down) makes breath visible.  Try blowing soft enough to move the fluffy part of the feather and then hard enough to move the stiff part of the feather.  Can you see your feather move, fast or slow, depending on how you’re breathing?  How does “fast” breath make you feel?  How does “slow” breath make you feel?  Practice Ujjayi breath by holding the feather under your nose and keeping your lips sealed like an envelope.

Floating Feather Game

Celebrate the power of breath by playing this game with yourself or a friend.  Using only your breath (no fingers or toes), keep your feather afloat.  Don’t let it touch the floor!  Try playing a little feather-volleyball with a friend.

Find the Feather Game

“Find the Feather,” is an intuition game.  Invite one yogi to be the “seeker”, and ask her to hide in the corner of the room, with no peeking.  Then, hide the feather under another yogi’s mat. Invite the seeker back and ask her to guess where the feather is hiding.  Talk about what it means to “go with your gut” and use your intuition.  You’d be amazed how many times the yogi will find the feather on the first or second try!

Bird Asanas

Feathers make learning our bird poses even more fun.  Hand out feathers when working on Eagle pose or Flamingo.  Let the kids be inspired to feel the source of their asanas even more fully given the feathers.  Decorate your pigeon with a feather or two or allow your swan to ruffle its feathers in movement.

Savasana

Feathers are great to use during savasana/ relaxation.  You can give your savasana-students “Feather Massages.”  As always, ask kids if they want to be touched.  (I have students put a thumb up in the air during savasana if they want an adjustment or massage.)  Lightly move the feather across the third-eye area.  Kids will lie really still in anticipation of a feather massage, so this helps in savasana management!  You can also gently place a feather on the belly or chest during savasana so there is an awareness of how breath effects the body when it enters and leaves.  You may even want to place several feathers around each relaxing yogi and lead the class through a “Bed of Feathers” guided visualization.  All of these techniques keep young yogis more still during savasana time.

Let your imagination soar as you and your students invent even more ways to use feathers in yoga class!  Even hanging some feathers in the yoga space can act as a constant reminder of this important, but invisible, part of the yoga practice.  Breathe deep, and let the feathers fly! 

Sarah Herrington is a full-time kids and Vinyasa yoga teacher in Manhattan.  For the past several years she’s taught 25 kids yoga classes a week in the public school and charter school system in NYC.  She has completed trainings through KarmaKids Yoga, MiniYogis and YogaEd, along with the training of teaching daily.  Her kids classes are infused with the joy and fun of yoga, and her Vinyasa classes with the power of intention, mindfulness, and breath.  She can be found online at: http://www.sarahherrington.com

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