For When You Have a Few Extra Minutes at the End of a Kids Yoga Class

Have you ever been teaching kids yoga only to find yourself with 7 or 8 minutes at the end of the class, not sure what to do?  It’s too little time for a big activity but too much time to finish early.

It’s those few minutes after you’ve already done the yoga, relaxation, a meditation, and a game.

It’s in a setting, like a school or daycare, where kids get story time and drawing – so you don’t want to repeat.

I’m referring to the places where you charge them for a full hour, which usually flies by, but on these days, the last few minutes seem like eternity.

This happened to me this week in a summer day care class with a group of 3-4 year old kids.  The class was small (8 kids) so all the yoga and games went by fast (compared to when there are 15 kids).  Yoga was right after nap time (3-4 pm), so the kids didn’t need a long relaxation.  Plus an hour with this age group is already on the long side of the class length.

Here are three things I go-to when I want to fill those last few minutes on days like these:

1. Reflection Time:  Ask the children to list all the poses we did in class.  Which were difficult to do? Which were easy?  Which was the most fun?
2. Dancing: Free form dance or a Freeze Dance (like Move and Freeze) gives the kids some unstructured movement.  Play many different styles and rhythms of music.  End with a slow song and then a minute of sitting quietly to leave the class in a calm state.
3. A Goodbye Song: Have you ever heard of Lawrence Welk?  He had a Goodnight song for the end of the show. I also have another song that uses kids names that involves a bathtub, a giraffe, and a plug.Make a slight adjustment to the words, but use the same tune and you have a sweet song to finish class (bubbles optional):

Lawrence Welk’s Good-Bye Song

Here’s one version I’ve used:

Good-bye Maya
So Long Maya (or change the name each time if you have a lot of kids)
Good-Bye Everyone
It’s time for me to go.

Hope you had a happy time, happy time, happy time.
Hope you had a happy time, I had a happy time too.

(repeat with another name)

When you have a few extra minutes at the end of a class do you end early or fill it?  What do you do in those extra few minutes?

Kids Meditation – 7 Year Old Yoga Sensation on Fox News

The Kundalini Kid!
Check out this News Story from Fox News:   Seven Year Old Sensation

The seven year old boy in this news story has grown up around yoga.  Obviously he’s watched many a yoga class over the years from his birth to “almost eight years old.”   But the story also reveals what yoga has done for him.  First, he’s creative enough to make up his own celestial communication meditation.  Second, he accepted the invitation to lead the meditation at Peace Prayer Day in front of thousands of people.  What confidence!  Not bad given that public speaking is one of the biggest fears of many ADULTS.

This news story fits in beautifully with the topic in my Kids Yoga Teacher Training course tonight – Teaching Yoga to kids 6 – 12 Years Old.

Seven, almost eight years old,  is a wonderful age for kids yoga!  These kids usually still like to imagine and play but they have to be encouraged not to shut this down.  They love yoga games.  And they’re NOT the age yet where they are totally absorbed in whispering to their friends throughout the class, they just do it occasionally.

The Meditations Kids Love
You may be surprised to hear that meditation with kids of this age is very popular.  When I teach kids yoga they’ll start asking, as they get tired, if it’s time for the meditation yet.  A kind of Yogic “Are we there yet?”  begins about three quarters of the way through the class.

I’ve even had kids come in and request different meditations at times when they have a big test or when their parents are having trouble getting along.

Give the Kids a Choice with Meditation
When we reach the end of the yoga set, the relaxation, I usually give kids the choice of either resting quietly or doing a meditation.  Movement meditations, known in Kundalini Yoga as Celestial Communication, are a big hit and kids can often do 6 minutes easily:

“Yogi Bhajan spoke often about the very powerful
transformation technology of Celestial Communication.
Everyone can practice this very simple meditation.
You can even make up your own Celestial Communication movements.
What is important is to choose music with uplifting words.”
3HO.org

The news story about this Kundalini Kid making up movements to Jack Johnson’s My Own Two Hands is Celestial Communication.  I encourage you to try it if you haven’t before.  Just pick a positive song and ask the kids to help you make up some movements.  You can do it sitting in easy pose or standing.  See if you can find some that you all like to do together – but it’s also fine for everyone to do their own movements.

It is a very relaxing and creative form of expression.  Plus, kids have helped me discover moves I never would have thought of on my own.

I’d love to hear your comments:  Have you ever tried Celestial Communication with your kids? What songs do you like?  What meditations do you like to do with kids?

Aruna Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

P.S.  Please join me for my next weekend intensive Kids Yoga Teacher Training to for an intensive weekend to prepare you to bring the joy of yoga to kids.  Dates:  April 30 – May 2.  Feel free to contact me for more information.  Aruna@YoungYogaMasters.com

Mother, Are We Poor?

Did the Hare Bully the Tortoise?

1. The hare is chock full of confidence to the point of bragging all the time and annoying not only the tortoise, for being slow, but also getting on the nerves of all the bystanders.
   
2. It is the tortoise who challenges the hare to a race.
   
3. The race begins and the tortoise does not waver from his course, slow and steady, while the hair zips back and forth and even stops to take a nap – which eventually leads to….
   
4. The tortoise wins the race!

We’ve all probably heard this story before but I remember my meditation teacher, Tulshi Sen, talking about this story describing some of the more subtle points in it.

The Audacity of the Tortoise
For instance, how crazy is it for the tortoise to challenge the hare to the race?

All the tortoise’s friends were probably winking behind his back saying, “Oh yea…. sure, you can beat that hare… after all you’re …. errr…..likely the slowest moving animal on the planet! But yes, give it a try.”

Before the race started do you think anyone believed the tortoise would really win?

Standing Up for What You Believe
This story was told by Aesop likely somewhere around 600 BC. This was well before “bullying” had been invented. But I think that hare actually fits the criteria of a bully – showing off in front of others and making fun of the tortoise because he’s slower – there was definitely bullying going on there.

That tortoise had to really believe in himself to break free from the tormenting hare. What if he didn’t win? What would he be in for then? But he took the leap of faith and believed in himself.

How to Build Kids’ Confidence
I told the story of the Tortoise and the Hare in this class because one of the mom’s told me her son had trouble with a bully at school. She had talked to the school about it and they were also working on it there. But she also wanted to help her son build his self-esteem, confidence, and feel better about himself.

Meditations and Stories Build Our Understanding of Who We Are
Stories, meditation, and yoga can help kids understand that true power comes from the Spirit, which is Consciousness. If we feel in our heart what we want and believe we can have it, we will not waver. The hare may zip ahead of us, come back and run circles around us, and even taunt us – but when we are sure of ourselves we can stay on our course, we will not waver.

The hare is a lot like all the worries and conditions that come to play in our lives and cause us to waver:

“That is the secret of the power of detachment. Just hold the vision.
Be still and know that it is already accomplished and hurtling down to you
to be experienced by your five senses. Your heart has already experienced it.
If your heart has not experienced it, it will not manifest and be experienced
by your five senses. Do not waver. “

Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World by Tulshi Sen, p. 34

What’s In Your Heart?
For a seven year old boy being bullied, this means finding the courage in his heart to vision happiness and believe he deserves it. Believing it even if he feels like everyone else thinks he’s crazy and is against him.

It’s difficult to tell a child this is true, but when they hear it in a story, that the tortoise believed in himself, did not waver, and won the race, it touches something within.

Using Stories To Go Straight to the Heart
Stories are powerful tools for all ages. Those like the Aesop’s fables, the seven stories in Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World, and other uplifting stories bypass the intellect and touch the heart.

Stories like the Tortoise and the Hare help kids believe that they can win the race too.

After all, if a tortoise can do it, why can’t we?

Aruna Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

P.S. Congratulations to the winner of the Yoga DVD by Hemalayaa, Yoga for Everybody: Bryan from At Home With Dad.

P.S.S. Kids Yoga Teacher Training: Two of the stories from Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World are covered in my Kids Yoga Teacher training. There’s a complete class theme and yoga poses for each story. The early registration deadline has been extended for the course, I would love to see you there so you can see how easy it can be to use stories in yoga class. Click here for details.

Sun Salutations – Ways to Explain the Sun Salutation to Kids

He also said,

That is how powerful our Consciousness is and why we salute the sun. We’re saluting that light, we’re honouring and obeying that light, and devoting ourselves to live in that light. Everything else will seem faint in comparison.

© K. Humphrys

Sun Salutation for Kids – Waking Up In the Dark

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night when it was completely dark?

Did you grope around in the dark trying to find the light switch, arms flailing around for protection, inching along trying to find the light without bumping into anything? Afraid for your shins? Stubbing your toe? Running your hand all over the wall feeling for the switch, only to discover you are on the wrong wall?

When you finally do find the switch and the light comes on, it is like magic. Everything is as clear as day, there is no mystery anymore. You can just head off the the bathroom or where ever you were going.

The Sun is the light that lights up everyday of our lives.
It is the light that chases away the darkness of the night. The sun is the force that we can count on so much so, we rarely think about it, and we probably never worry whether it will come up tomorrow. That is how much we believe in the sun.

Have You Ever Worried that the Sun Won’t Rise? Probably not.
When we do the Sun Salutation, we honour the light of the sun and we also honour the light that is in us, our Consciousness. We train our minds to recognize that we can depend on Consciousness the same way we can depend on the sun rising every morning.

The Sun Salutation is great exercise, but it is also a mental discipline to train the mind to depend on the Consciousness. No matter how much it feels like we are stumbling around in the dark, we train ourselves to turn on the inner light switch that is always there to illuminate our true feelings. We make a habit to turn inward just like the earth turns towards the sun every morning.

Through yoga and meditation like this we orient our world, intentionally, toward the light, the light that is within us. Doing the Sun Salutation is like asking the sun to rise in our life.

Aruna Humphrys

Sun Salutation for Kids – How to Remove Darkness

Sun Salutation to Remove Darkness

Sun Salutation for Kids – Saluting the Eternal Light Within Us

Who do Kids Belong to?

A Priceless Treasure

To Get Kids Attention
In the year 2003 I found a valuable treasure while teaching kids yoga.

Emily loved yoga so much that she was always one of the first ones to sit in the circle. As the other kids sat down, and a few of them put up a fuss, I saw Emily start doing her favorite meditation. I sat down beside her and joined her.

And then the Miracle Occurred…
We sang/chanted the meditation out loud for about 1 minute and without any other words, the group got together and joined in. Without a single piece of direction or advice every kid got ready by themselves.

This was yoga teacher ecstasy. From that moment on this became my map to get kids attention. Meditation became my new best friend!

Best Friends Forever
In my class when you hear chanting it’s time to get back in the circle and join in. I do it at the beginning, middle, and/or end of class. Any time things start getting too lively, there’s me and meditation, my BFF. It’s a win-win solution, I relax and the kids relax too.

You will be amazed how much kids like this. So much so that it became the routine in Emily’s class, a ritual that lasted till the end of the school year. Then Emily graduated to the big school.

I never did thank Emily for this gift, but I think she feels it in how much I have appreciated it.

P.P.S. Win a copy of the life-changing book Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World by Tulshi Sen. To enter: answer the poll on the right side of my blog, then leave a comment with your answer and a link back to you. One winner will be drawn from everyone who enters. Draw closes June 30/2008.
See contest details here.

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