We all know that teaching yoga in the classroom can be wonderful for so many reasons! Not only can yoga make a great sensory or movement break, it’s a great practice for students who struggle with concentration or for students who experience anxiety. The benefits of yoga for kids are similar to the benefits of mindfulness, making it another fantastic classroom activity to add to your teaching toolkit.
If the idea of teaching yoga is new to you, here are our top tips for teaching yoga in the classroom.
(1) Make it Fun!
While yoga is usually thought of as a very quiet and internally focused activity (and by all means learning to master this kind of state is an important end goal of all yoga practice), for kids who are new to yoga it needs to be enjoyable!
There are some really great ways you can inject a little more fun into your yoga sessions. Here are some great ideas for ways you could use our wonderful Yoga Poses for Kids Posters:
- Provide small groups with a set of the yoga pose posters and get students to take turns teaching a pose to their group.
- Attach the yoga posters to the sides of a giant dice and let each student take turns rolling the die and leading a pose.
Your students can also follow some really awesome kid’s yoga videos on YouTube. Cosmic Kids Yoga is one real favourite. Check it out!
(2) Get Involved
If you want your students to really engage in yoga activities, you need to lead by example. Try out the poses and participate in yoga sessions with your students!
(3) Choose a Spacious and Safe Environment
It is so important that you find the right environment for your class yoga sessions. You need students to be able to stretch out, lay down and move around comfortably and safely.
It’s also totally fine to go yoga mat-free!
Your students can still learn basic yoga in their socks or bare feet.
If the weather permits, why not encourage students to bring a clean towel to school to use as a yoga mat and run your yoga sessions outside? Alternatively, make a reservation for your school’s hall or multi-purpose space.
(4) Be Responsive to the Vibe
If your students are really enjoying a pose, and their concentration levels are high, let them stay in the pose for a while and really enjoy the quiet concentration and relaxation.
Similarly, if your students are struggling to get something just right or if they just can’t focus, change things up! Try instructing them to try a new pose or change from whole class to small group instruction.
(5) Mix Up Your Movement Sessions
Yoga is great! But there are a huge number of other activities that you can try out for class movement sessions. Take a look at the following blog posts for more ideas about activities and games to get your class moving!
If your students already love yoga, you might like to extend them further by exploring mindfulness, too. Our printable Mindfulness Activity Task Cards are a wonderful resource for classroom mindfulness practice, and our blog post “18 Amazing Mindfulness Activities for the Classroom” provides some great tips for teachers!
Download these great Yoga Poses for Kids Posters!
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