When teaching children yoga you always need a number of fun and engaging yoga games at your disposal. Here is a suggestion from yoga expert Aruna Humphrys of Young Yoga Masters. This game focuses on increasing intuition, awareness, and sensitivity to others and the environment. It also teaches about our senses and how heavily we rely upon the sense of sight. By playing Heart’s Hide ‘n Seek, children develop their sense of hearing and touch in order to navigate unharmed and locate their classmates.

Heart’s Hide ’n Seek

Ask everyone to close their eyes and have them raise their arms out in front of them, reaching with their finger tips. They will slowly walk around, eyes closed, and try to feel for the other kid’s finger tips. The game is to be quiet, if they meet someone keep their eyes closed and don’t talk, they only touch gently.  Can they feel the person’s energy through their fingertips?  Then they can whisper “Hello”  or “Namaste” and then move on to find someone else. 

The teacher needs to watch the kids because everyone has their eyes closed.  But it is fun to see if the kids can feel their way around the room without using their eyes.  They can use their heart and intuition.  Feel instead of see. 

Many kids will have trouble keeping their eyes closed and being quiet, but it is still a fun challenge to try it and they can build up to going longer times.  And it also has to be an empty room so the kids don’t get hurt.

Visit the Yoga Games page for a complete listing of yoga games that will take your lessons from fun to fabulous.

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This game is always a hit and can be used as a warm up, to review poses, simply to fill a few minutes, or to change the pace of the lesson especially if kids are getting a little wiggly. This is a fun way to teach listening skills. Studies also show that this game improves self-control and restraint of impulsive behavior. Furthermore, playing Swami Says attunes children to the power of example as we automatically want to follow the leader but sometimes need to choose our own actions (in the game) and path (in life). Teach leadership skills by allowing children to take turns being the ‘Swami’ and calling out poses to perform. I usually review 4-7 poses that we will be using before beginning the game to make sure everyone knows what’s what.

Swami Says

This game is played like the playground favourite ‘Simon Says’, however this time the Swami is in charge.  The ‘Swami’ calls out instructions such as, “Swami says Cat pose.” Everyone performs Cat pose. If the ‘Swami’ calls out instructions without “Swami says” then everyone should disregard the instruction.

I never play so that kids are ‘out,’ instead simply remind them to listen carefully and reward their great auditory and yoga skills. Usually we all have a good laugh and continue on. Speeding up the poses ‘Swami’ calls out will make this much more difficult as will simply using the  suggestion “Swami says Do this” while performing the pose desired. The later also works really well with younger kids or those new to yoga who don’t know the names of the poses yet but do know how to do them. Another tricky suggestion, once your class is good at this, is to say one pose but perform a different pose. Ohhhh, I knew you’d like that.

Have fun and play a yoga game today!

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When teaching yoga to children you always need a number of yoga games at your disposal. Freeze Dance/Statues is a quick and easy one to use at the beginning or end of class. It helps kids to break free of constraints and let their inhibitions go. Integrating music into the yoga classroom is most natural. Choose music to correspond to the class theme or just something fun and upbeat. This activity will really get the heart rate up and increase the positive energy in the room. Kids LOVE playing Freeze Dance/Statues so be sure to pull this one out of your instuctor’s bag o’ tricks often.

Freeze Dance/Statues

Begin by reviewing a few suggested yoga poses. Mountain, Warrior, Eagle, Tree, Dancer, and other standing and balance poses work especially well with this activity as they are easy poses to assume when dancing around a room. Next turn on some music. Fun, up-tempo tunes work best. While the music plays everyone freestyle dances around the room. When the music stops everyone must freeze in a yoga pose…become a statue.

The teacher can then go around and provide adjustments or give suggestions on how to better perform the pose. Be sure to only do one or two students at a time as its hard to hold some poses for a long time, especially for kids who really want to be dancing. I generally praise creative poses or ones that are a little more difficult. Also one rule we follow is that you can’t do the same pose twice in a row – that’s the reason for reviewing a variety of poses at the beginning.

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AcroYoga is a fusion of yoga, thai massage and acrobatics. It relies on trust, connections and playfulness to increase the sense of union with self and others. The founders state: 

We are unified in our vision to bring more peace, playfulness and joy in to the world. Through practicing AcroYoga, we experience a deepening trust in ourselves and others, and realize that by working in partnership, we manifest more than we ever could alone. 

This style of yoga focuses heavily on partner poses and thereby builds confidence, teaches trust, and establishes strong bonds and relationships. Add to that the benefits of yoga and you have a magical combination. But best of all, as you can tell by the laughter and smiles, it’s FUN!

Last week I was thrilled to be interviewed by a Reader’s Digest writer researching an article on yoga in schools. She was commenting on how little information there was regarding the benefits to kids about doing yoga in schools.

Then over the weekend the PranaMama sent me this great article from Active.comwhich tells of the link between brain function and activity. Charles Hillman, one of the researchers, commented “The fit kids processed information more quickly and performed faster and more accurately than their sedentary peers. Exercise can really affect cognition, just as it affects muscles.” In fact,

According to neuroscientists, exercise increases blood flow in the brain, encourages activity between the neurons, and even promotes new neurons to grow in the hippocampus, which plays a major role in memory and learning.

“Exercise is the single most powerful tool you have to optimize your brain function,” says Harvard psychologist John Ratey, M.D., and author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

So yes, yoga really will make you smarter and now science is proving it.

This is great news for teachers. Suddenly the DPA Requirement isn’t just about healthy bodies and habits (though those goals are valid in their own right). Its also about how to maximize children’s learning potential. 

So crack out the yoga games, get your downdog on, do a few washing machines at your desk, or be majestic as a mountain and know that you are feeding your brain. You’ll feel better, be healthier, and best of all be smarter.

And as a Mom I’m relieved to know that my children are brilliant!

Mirroring is a great activity that increases attention to detail and communication skills. In fact, mirroring is a common human behavior which we adopt often without even being aware that we are doing it. For example, when someone we are talking with smiles, we smile in return. Mirroring may express itself in gestures, eye movements, facial expressions, body language, even choice of words and attitude. Mirroring as an exercise attunes us to various forms of non-verbal communication and helps us feel connected to those around us. This is not a new game and is often used in theatre games, but is just as effective as a yoga game.

Mirror, Mirror

In pairs, ask the children to copy one another. Stand facing your partner arms distance apart. The leader does an action slowly; their mirror mimics, trying to match them like a reflection. For example is the leader raises their right arm, the follower raises their left arm in the same manner. This is easier to do if you maintain eye contact and not look at extremities and if slow, smooth movements are used instead of abrupt ones. Feel free to call out various activities for them to mimic, such as:

• brushing teeth
• washing hair
• scratching their chin
• putting pants, shoes, or a shirt on
• needing to go pee
• climbing a ladder
• being sad, angry, surprised, hurt, thrilled, anxious, etc.
• practising Mountain pose, Tree pose, Warrior Pose

This is an exercise in co-operation and the leader should try as hard as the mirror to make their movements match. No trying to trick them. Continue on for a minute or more, then switch roles. Once students get good at doing this slowly, do it at normal speed, then quickly for those with really good reflexes.

Here is a video clip of Mirror using emotions and facial expressions.

Mirror Facial Expressions Theater Game for Kids — powered by eHow.com

An advanced version of this game is not to designate a leader but simply tell the participants that they must continue mirroring each other. This final version is an exercise in co-operation and competition and may stimulate some interesting observations and conversations.

Variations

Magnifying Mirrors: the leader keeps his gestures small, the mirror makes them bigger

Shrinking Mirrors: the opposite of the above, here the leader keeps his gestures large, the mirror makes them smaller

Opposites: Instead of matching right to left, participants use the same side of the body: leader raises right hand, mirror raises right hand. This leads to some interesting effects as participants can now move into each other’s space or change places as they are not inhibited by the imaginary mirror which acts as an invisible barrier.