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Tricky Tree group yoga pose develops concentration and focus while improving balance and memory. This is an ideal pose to get students working together and is a lot of fun as our three yogis demonstrate. By employing this pose children are able to access kinaesthetic learning, engaging their minds and bodies to review a basic learning skill such as counting by twos, multiplication tables, spelling words or in this case repeating the days of the week in French. In addition, they develop their social skills by learning to work together communicating verbally and non-verbally with one another.
Tricky Tree: Group Yoga Pose
In order to build focus and concentration a great pose is Tricky Tree. This is a partner or group pose.
Facing your partner or into the group, everyone needs to raise the same leg and give it to the person standing beside them. In this case we are going to raise the right leg, giving to the person at our right. This takes some teamwork and a lot of balance.
So once you are in the pose, you can then repeat something which requires rote memorization such as the days of the week in French.
When you are finished its nice to either step out of the pose, or if you are in a safe environment with no sharp edges, you can gently fall to the floor.
And that’s Tricky Tree.
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So you’re somewhat interested in labyrinths and the kids find them a great place to skip along a path and play, but what’s the point? What can one learn from walking a labyrinth or tracing a finger labyrinth? The answer: all kinds of great things from focus to mathematical formulas. Here is a list of some of the ways labyrinths can be used as a learning tool with children and teenagers.
Mindfulness
Labyrinths are a right brain meditation activity. In other words labyrinths develop creativity and imagination while focusing and calming the mind and body. Using labyrinths as mindfulness tools will reduce stress and increase concentration helping to create an optimum learning environment in the classroom.
Gross Motor Skills
Whether you are walking precisely, hopping, skipping, or playing along the path, a labyrinth will develop gross motor skills such as coordination, balance, body awareness, and spatial orientation. These skills are essential to proper physical development in children and also prepare the body for fine motor skills.
Fine Motor Skills
Finger labyrinths help refine fine motor skills. Using a finger or pen to follow the path in to the center and out again requires concentration and develops the small muscle movements in the hands as well as finger/eye coordination. Coloring labyrinths furthers this development.
Labyrinths have been used as a metaphor, cultural symbol and narrative structure in literature and film. Examining their use and various examples throughout history is an interesting and illuminating journey. Journaling about any lessons learned or insights gained while walking a labyrinth is a valuable self reflection exercise. Here are some observations from youth.
Math
From patterns to advanced calculations, labyrinths are a mathematicians playground. Understand patterns by learning to draw a labyrinth. Tony Philips provides lesson plans and activities which connect math with labyrinths here. Examine the geometry of various labyrinths.
Science
Build a labyrinth out of materials used during science lessons: tulip labyrinth, rock collection. Observe local bird species with the help of a birdseed labyrinth. Celebrate Earth Day by building a labryrinth with found items in nature: sticks, leaves, twigs, rocks, sea weed, grass, etc.
Physical Education
Walk, run, skip, hop, jump, backwards, forwards or sideways through the labyrinth. Get the heart rate up or bring it down. Compare how your body feels and the energy various activities create. In the winter enjoy building a snow labyrinth with snowshoes.
A local yoga instructor is doing her part to promote healthy living for children. Donna Freeman is the author of the new book Once Upon a Pose and today she joins us in studio. She’s also brought along some kids.
We are talking about yoga and kids and how fun it can be. But you’re specifically looking at how to get yoga into schools.
Yes, yoga in schools is a really wonderful combination of bringing the health benefits and the intellectual and emotional training into the classroom. It’s just vital to bring it into the classroom these days. Kids need these skills.
Q: What’s some of the stuff you are able to do in the classroom?
You can use what we are doing today which is a whole lot of partner poses. Partner poses develop cooperation and team work and they get kids talking with one another and working together in a really unique way.
Another thing that is nice about a school is you can use what’s in a school, a desk and a chair, to do yoga. A lot of people don’t think of that because in their typical class, which is in a studio, and there is a mat and they aren’t sure how to adapt it to a school.
Q: What are some of the benefits for kids?
Increased focus, improved concentration, their creativity skyrockets, their impulse control is greater. As well, it reduces their stress so that they are in a mental and emotional place where they’re ready to learn.
Q: And you think you can use this in different subjects?
For sure. You can use yoga in a science classroom, mathematics classroom, language arts classroom, even in an art classroom. Y0u can incorporate yoga poses in all those subject areas.
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.
Yoga during algebra? A good arguement for it in this BT Bite!
It’s great for your breathing, flexibility and stress relief and it isn’t just for grown-ups. Donna Freeman is the founder of YogaInMySchool.com, an innovative program aimed at kids and teens, and she joins Breakfast Television with a few young friends.
Teens are at an ideal age to practice yoga. It helps them de-stress, focus, develop mentally, emotionally and physically, get to know themselves and become all they can be.
Pythagorean Theorem (a2+b2=c2 ) is a classic equation which defines the relation among the three sides of a right angle triangle. This equation can be effectively proven by practicing Extended Side Angle pose (utthita parsvakonasana). This is also a wonderful way to incorporate kinesthetic learning into a sometimes challenging algebraic concept helping all students to solidify their understanding through whole body integration.
With a partner use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of your hypotenuse (the longest side of the triangle) with one person performing the pose, and other measuring the distance from the tips of the fingers straight down to the floor (the height) and the distance between the feet (the base). Next measure from the tips of the fingers along the length of the body to the end of the toes (the hypotenuse) to verify your answer. Switch roles and repeat.
Once you have these measurements you can delve deeper into understanding the geometry of a right angle triangle by performing these calculations.
Calculate the perimeterof your triangle by adding the length of the three sides: a+b+c = perimeter
Calculate the area of your triangle: 1/2(base x height) = area
Calculate the height of your triangle when using the hypotenuse as the base in your calculations. You may have to sketch a scale drawing of the triangle to perform these calculations, flipping the triangle so that the hypotenuse is the base to make it visually easier to understand. This step will involve some understanding of sine and angles and is more advanced than the previous calculations.
Finally make a chart of the different calculations including diagrams to reinforce visual understanding.
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