Teaching yoga to children

HI Pam thanks for the ideas.

Earlier in the week I took the first sessions, as part of a holiday play scheme, a morning of Yoga and Sports. I thought I was well prepared ...........
The kids ( 5 -7 yrs ) were totally off the wall, workmen were in the room next door using every power tool imaginable ,and the regular helpers off sick !

We did get through the session ok though it didn't go as smoothly as anticipated!There were a couple of kids that were very difficult to engage, and needed to be closely observed so that they did not disrupt the others.

Balancing postures were useful to get the kids attention,the children also made one up and showed it to the rest of the group which they loved. Sequences with the dog stretch were enjoyed as was lying down with a breathing buddy on their tummy ( bath ducks swimming up and down with the breath)!

The second smaller group of slightly older (8 - 10 ) girls was fine, they enjoyed , listened and created some wonderful postures.

Later in the week I was running a clay workshop in the same place and one of the Mum's came and told me how much her son had enjoyed the yoga session. To my surprise and delight on asking his name he had been one of the boys who had initially been very difficult to work with...

Hello Claire,

I was involved this time last year, the hottest day I recall, in a local school Health Week. I was asked to teach for about 20 minuets to children including 5-7 year olds.
I used ideas around Niyama, Asana,Breathing,and Yama.

Niyama was about looking after ourselves. So we did some simple movements to help circulation, muscles and posture etc. These movements included wiggling and stretching the toes. Shaking the hands and wrists. Also moving the neck.
Asana included the postures, cat, dog, and cobra .Animal shapes they could relate to, watch me demonstrate and do for themselves. The teachers with me helped to adjust the children.

For breathing we used the lion breath. They love the teacher being funny and they were very much aware of the breath doing this.

Yama was around caring for others. I used the following idea to give a sense of connection with others. We all stood in a circle held hand to become a flower. We raised our held hands; this was the petals opening and lowered the hands when the petals close at night. We did one opening of the petals and imagined a bee coming in so we all together made the sound of a bee. The bee breath.
I hope this helps to give you some ideas.

Pam

Hi Claire,

I have done some teaching with children, they were slightly older than yours 7-10, but I would say keep it fun and fast and noisy. I did a seminar with a wonderful lady (sorry forgotten her name) a while back and she was very inspirational. She advised to set guidelines at the beginning that the children can understand - so their mat is their tree house and if they don't want to join in then that is fine but they have to sit in their tree house and not disturb others. Explain that everyone can do yoga even if they are not sporty. Then I would take them on a journey from their tree house - using animals etc to work the postures. I've been teaching children on and off at my local primary school for 2/3 years now and I have found if you use lots of sound in the postures they will eventually become quieter between postures. Make it fun, I gave some of our animals names, we had Cyril the crocodile who had a rotten cold and so I was getting them to use very basic alternate nostril just to see whether we could make him better. Also Lawrence the lion who had lost his roar. I also used a pair of silly lips that make a whizzing noise and when I blew through the lips the kids knew they had to listen for the next instruction. Its hard work teaching kids - but it is well worth it. I have also used very simple chanting with them and they love it - even the ones who don't want to do the asana will normally join in the chanting. Hope this helps. Jan