Yoga Reward, Yoga Match and Forts (Dec. 9th and 11th)

Announcing, Yoga Reward sheets,  a visual guide to help our young yogis, motivate themselves to continue to develop on their yoga journey.  I have shared it with the kids in class this week, and they will be sharing these with you after class on an ongoing basis.  

This week, we engaged the imagination of our younger group by using the Book, Hello Red Fox.  We also used this book to practice our breath work and build focus through breathing.  I love using this book as it not only lends itself to fun yoga poses, but also presents an amazing opportunity to mindfully breathe.  

The kids imagined themselves to be a fox, butterfly, cat bird and fish, and together, we hissed like snakes, flapped our wings, wagged our tails, purred like cats while holding various poses.   Here are some pictures of our little fishes:

 We also challenged ourselves to hold some of the more familiar poses such as dog and snake for more than 2 breath cycles, take a look at their reward sheet to see how they are progressing:)  We are using animal buddies during our relaxation to help us find calm and peace.  Feel free to send in their favorite plushie to be used during relaxation.

The older kids, continue to practice their sun salutation flow, while learning some new poses.  This week we played a fun Yoga match game and learned new poses while building our attention skills.

Victory Pose

Boat pose

What a Happy Turtle!

Making a bridge for Mr. Dino!

Making a bridge for Yoga Star!

Inspiring Turtle pose!

Relaxed Turtle!

Strong Bridge!

Another strong Bridge

We ended our class with Relaxation, where our young super heroes used their imagination and build amazing forts as their retreat centers:)  Thank you David for inspiring us to build these!

Suggested Activity:  Build a place in your house that you can use to relax and find peace as a family.  Imagination is your only limit, but building forts/palaces out of pillows, and sheets is a great place to start!  Call it your family retreat center and unwind and breathe and relax.  With the holidays approaching treat yourself to some peace and quiet!

Thank you Alex for those Yummy Ninja cookies!

We  wanted to express our gratitude to Alex and his mom who so kindly baked some Ninja cookies for our young super heroes.  Everyone really enjoyed these delicious treats, thank you Alex for sharing these with us:)

Let's always remember to be brave, breathe and use these Ninjas as our inspiration while doing our warrior poses:)  

The Science of Happiness - An Experiment in Gratitude

We did this experiment in our yoga class, the older students have written a letter over the last few of weeks, and this week we will be reading these letters out to our special person:)

Give this a try and please feel free to post about your experience on my blog!

StoryTime Yoga, Toe-Ga and more (Dec. 2nd and 4th)

This week the younger kids continued to learn new poses while developing their attention and focus through some fun activities.  We did storytime Yoga using Eric Carle's book, The Greedy Python and at the end we learned a valuable lesson about eating slowly and mindfully so we don't end up like the python.  Ask your child about what happened to the python when he too much too fast.  On Wednesday, we worked on developing our mindful listening by practicing our poses with a faster paced yoga song.  The kids had to listen to the words of the song to be able to move from one pose to another and ended up doing a mini yoga flow routine with the song:)  I was very proud of all the kids, and enjoyed leading them through various poses, Tree to triangle to forward bend, to valley and finally on our bellies as snakes.

We have also tried out some fun partner poses, one of my favorites is pedal laughing, where we connected with a partner and had to pedal our feet in unison and and match the tempo of our laugh to the intensity of pedalling.  Laughter yoga is such a great way to release those happy hormones:)

We also did Yoga for toes on Wednesday and the kids were challenged to a game of Toe-Ga.  Ask them how many pom poms they could collect with their toes?  The kids really enjoyed this game, and I loved watching each of them develop their focus and balance as they tried to collect those tiny pom poms with their feet.

The older kids were challenged to do some yoga flows as they continue to develop their practice, we imagined ourselves to be transformers and moved from one pose to another while learning the sun salutation flow.  We also continue to explore partner poses such as partner tree and downward dog and backward bend.  These partner poses are ones that you can try out with your kids and I guarantee it will lead to a lot of joyful moments:)

The older kids also had a chance to practice yoga for the toes, and we played Toe-Ga as they challenged themselves to lift the pom poms with their dominant foot and the less dominant foot.  I have also introduced them to some Yoga Mudras, a form of hand yoga, that activates various pressure points in their fingers, and further develops their focus and attention.

With the holidays around the corner, we have also been thinking a lot about gratitude and being grateful for not only the things we have, but the people in our lives who make everyday so special.  Take a look at the video titled,  "The Science of Happiness," on my blog.  Ask your child who they picked as their special person and over the holidays take some time to do this activity as a family!

Suggested activity: Give someone the Gift of Gratitude this Holiday. Use the guide below to write a letter to one special person, gransparent, teacher, sibling, coach etc and then read the letter to that person. Feel the happiness and know that you have made someone else also feel very happy:)

Think of one person in your life who did/does something really amazing or important for you.  

Write a letter to that person.  Some of the things to write about are:

Why is this person so important?

List all the special things that this person does for you every day and how that makes you feel.

Thank that person for all those things that they do for you.

Celebrations and Farewell

This was another eventful week, as we celebrated Avaneesh's birthday on Monday and then with a heavy heart said farewell to Pearce, who will be going back to Australia.  We will miss you Pearce!

To celebrate Avaneesh's special day we went through yoga poses corresponding to the letters in his name.  We had fun trying out new poses like valley and nectar pose and practicing some older ones such as Alive, Elephant and Snake.  We also did the warrior series of poses that help us feel strong, bold and brave:)  During our Wednesday class, we revisited some of the poses from the What I can See I Can be book, and then we went on an imaginary jungle adventure.  I had brought in a special song for them and we used the words in the song to cue us into many fun yoga animal poses.  We also worked on some partner poses; this week we tried out back to back mirror.  This activity, develops breath and body awareness, as they try and sync their movement and breath.  

The older kids welcomed Tomas back and are grateful that he is feeling better.  We are working on incorporating mini flow routines at the start of every class.  The Monday class flow routine incorporated various plank positions, ask you child to show you their favourite plank.  Here are some pictures of them doing their favourite plank pose and some of them getting creative and trying to do a partner side plank.

The older kids also had a lot of fun exploring partner poses, this week, we did seated twists, back to back mirror, forest of trees and straddle. We have also been working on various gratitude exercises, ask your child to show you how to play the "Orange you grateful" game.  

I am grateful that I can share the joy of Yoga with kids and for their smiles and enthusiasm that makes teaching Yoga so much fun!

Home Activity: As a family establish your own routine to practice gratefulness, studies prove that when we express gratitude it creates a lasting sense of happiness. Here is one such article that explains how, and offers ways you can incorporate this philosophy in your life.

http://www.foodrevolution.org/blog/gratitude/

Imagination, Affirmations and Mindful Movements

This was a fun week, with the younger kids I focused on developing breath awareness and using the What I can See, I Can Be book as a visual guide for our yoga poses.   It was so much fun using our imagination and turning ourself into a still mountain, then a volcano, a tree, a dog, a snake, a mouse, a kite, a boat and a peaceful meadow.  I am very proud to see our young yogis give it their best and smile while holding their poses:)  As a special treat on Wednesday, we also had time to play a fun game Duck Duck goose with a Yoga twist.  We ended our classes with relaxation where they usually center their breath and calm their minds by colouring one of the poses they learned in class and then transitioning into quiet relaxation either lying down or sitting in easy pose.  On Monday, we sang along to a positive affirmation song and felt beautiful, bountiful and blissful at the end of it.  Affirmations are a great way to instill positive thoughts in a child, and work on building their sense of self, and what better way than songs to affirm these positive thoughts!

Hissing like Snakes!

The older kids continue to challenge themselves with short yoga flows while building body awareness. Last week, we talked about 2 types of bones in our leg (tibia and femur) and this week I introduced 2 bones in our arms (ulna and humerus).  Understanding our anatomy, allows the kids to start connecting with various parts of their body as they perform each pose, and thereby embark upon the journey of mind and body connection.
They have also been shown various partner poses; I find these work very well in helping them build awareness of another person and also fostering the spirit of co-operation.  Below are some pictures taken from a previous class showing partner downward dog pose.  Ask your child to show you some of the back-to back poses we learned in class this week.

Partner Downward Dog

Announcement:  On Wednesday, we welcomed Mrs. L, a Yoga teacher and a colleague of mine, who will be joining us occasionally during our Yoga classes.

Yoga at Home:  During class, I have introduced the idea of using our breath, to let go of worries or not so good thoughts.  Trying this out at bedtime works very well, ask your child to lie down on their backs, think about a worry they may have had as they inhale and release that worry as they exhale.
With the older kids we are using visualization and have been filling each worry into a balloon and then releasing the balloon and letting go of our worry.  I usually ask the kids to make a long "haah" sound as they exhale their worries/release their balloon.  With the younger kids I ask them to go into mouse pose and exhale the worries that are trapped in their head into the earth.  Feel free to give any of these methods a try and please do share your experiences on my blog.

New session and new friends

Today, we started our November session and it was a pleasure to see everyone and also welcome some new friends to our class.  We also welcomed our friend Mr. Bonesy, who will be educating the kids on various bones in our body and thereby helping them become aware of the different bones we end up using during various yoga poses.

With the younger kids we played the name game and practised various poses that started with the first letter in their name.  We certainly had a lot of fun doing our poses and each child felt very special at the end of our game.

With the older kids, I introduced the femur and tibia and we reminded ourselves of positioning both these bones safely when doing our poses.  I challenged them with a Yoga flow routine and I was so happy to see how well they are progressing.  Tomas shared how he used his breath to calm himself down, when he went trick or treating and saw something that scared him.  Always grateful to see kids take their learnings from Yoga and put them into action.

Suggested Activity:  Increase your child's awareness of their body, by identifying some of the commonly used bones, clavicle, tibia etc and make it into a game.  Shout out an activity such as walking and then your child would list the bones they use to perform that.

Ninja Stars- A Balancing Tool

We have been talking a lot about super heroes in our classes and are working on strengthening our super powers by practicing Yoga.

In October, I had shared a fun super hero tool that can be used at home and in my class to develop balance.   I brought in a craft I had made at home with my boys called, "Ninja Star."  Most of the kids loved using Ninja Star!   Ask your child to show you how to use it and make it a family event to see how long each of you can hold a balancing pose with Ninja Star on your foot.

For those who would like to make one with their family, I have posted the directions here so feel free to give it a try:)

Challenging ourself with new Poses

We had another action packed class on Monday trying out some new poses, and I was so happy to watch all the kids gave these new poses a try with a "Can DO" attitude.  

I introduced a new breathing technique called "Bunny Breath,"  where we take a few (we have started with 3) rapid breaths in a row through our nose, and then exhale out through our mouth with a long, smooth sigh.  This breathing technique helps boost their energy and clear their minds;  ask your child to teach you this fun and energizing breath:)

The kids were introduced to bow, plank and camel pose today, and admidst the excitement, I managed to take a few pictures of a few of them giving it their best shot.  With the older kids we played unscramble the word with our Yoga Alphabet cards and the kids had fun unscrambling the word           " Peace," while doing the poses that corresponded to the letters.

P: Plank

E: Elephant

A: Alive

C: Camel

E: Elephant, group pose

We are also working on holding our poses longer at least 3 full breaths in each pose for the younger kids and about 4-5 full breaths with the older ones.

The class ended with relaxation and us being grateful for the special people we have in our lives:)

Suggested Activity:  Play a game of unscramble the word with your family and come up with a Yoga pose to correspond with each chosen letter.  Get creative and come up names for the poses and use this time to connect, laugh and be active with each other.

Welcoming the Bell of Silence

Today, I introduced the kids to a special bell that I will be using in our classes.  The bell serves as a reminder for us to stop what we are doing and just close our eyes and connect with our breath.  We practiced our balloon breathing while using the bell.  The kids are learning to use their balloon breathing to help them settle their breaths after a sport or any other strenuous physical activity.

We transitioned into our Yoga poses, where everyone had a wonderful time playing Freeze and Move and selecting a pose performed by some of their favorite characters. They all loved the game and ended up challenging themselves with some new poses.

Suggested Activity:  I will be handing out Breathing Graphs to all of them tomorrow.  It is a fun visual way for kids to start learning and gaining breath awareness based on physical changes in the body.  Have fun with it and create a version of that graph for each of your family member(s) and observe, discuss and graph as a family.  Some of the questions you want to ask are how does your breath feel when  you are playing, or sitting, or balloon breathing.  Guide them with words such as short, long, cold, warm, fast, calm, and also help them observe how many breaths they end up taking in half a minute after different activities.  I am looking forward to introducing the graph to the kids tomorrow and guiding them with their observations.

FAMILY YOGA CLASS IS NOW FULL

THANK YOU TO ALL THE FAMILIES WHO ARE PLANNING TO ATTEND TODAY'S FAMILY YOGA CLASS.  AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WERE UNABLE TO JOIN US, WE HOPE TO SEE YOU IN THE FUTURE:)

We are going to Outer Space

3.............2....................1.............  BLAST OFF !

Welcome everyone to our October Yoga session where the kids have embarked on an exciting mission to outer space.

Before heading off on our trip, we warmed up, did some jumping jacks and high knees to investigate what our breath feels like when we engage in intense activities.  Most of us agreed that our breath and heart beat felt super fast and so we learned to calm our bodies using our breath and just like magic our breath and heart started slowing down and we felt calmer:)

As astronauts about to leave on a mission, we had to make sure our lungs were strong, so we practiced a special breathing technique with my fellow space jetters.  This time our mission took us to the moon and we rode moon buggies which was a lot of fun but took a lot of energy, so we checked in on our breath and calmed our minds and bodies down by breathing.  All of us had a blast exploring yoga poses as we travelled through space.

I have asked the kids to bring in any books, space figures etc that they would like to share with us and we will use them to help us out on our search and rescue mission.

My hope is that along-with Yoga, the kids will also learn a little more about outer space as we move forward on our journey.  We wrapped up our class with reflection and relaxation, and each child took a minute to write one of their dreams.

                                                      

Suggested Family Activity:  Ask your child to share some of their dreams with you and be sure to share some of yours.  Write down your wishes on a star and post them on a wall to inspire everyone to fulfill their dreams:)

FREE FAMILY YOGA CLASS

FAMILY YOGA

BLOSSOM YOGA INVITES YOU FOR A FREE PARENT AND CHILD CLASS

NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED…. BE READY TO HAVE FUN WITH YOUR CHILD EXPLORING YOGA POSES, GAMES AND SONGS TOGETHER :)

                       REGISTER EARLY VIA EMAIL Pmonaghan@stjudesacademy.com 
OR AT FRONT DESK

 SPACES ARE LIMITED!

WHEN:  FRIDAY OCTOBER 4TH 
TIME: 4:00PM-5:00PM

LOCATION:  A2 GYM @ ST. JUDES ACADEMY

What will my child be doing in YOGA?

We have embarked on our Yoga journey and will be exploring many different Yoga poses along with breathing exercises to help strengthen our bodies and minds.  The breath work done in our classes is an important tool that allows children to relax and focus their mind.  We will intertwine breath work with our Yoga poses;  my goal is to help kids learn how to use their breath to deal with different emotions, stress and anxiety.  

As a rule of thumb the Yoga poses that the kids will learn will fall under these categories:

• Leg and Arm Stretch and strengthening
• Balancing
• Twisting and Bending

I usually use a combination of games, songs and stories to teach kids Yoga poses.   Based on the child's ability, they will also work on Yoga micro exercises that will prepare them to safely do the pose.

The class wraps up with relaxation where I use music and/or guided imagery to help the young yogis relax.

If you have questions as to how your child is progressing please email me at: upatrawala@gmail.com or come see me after class.
Namaste!

"You can't stop the waves from coming, but you can Learn how to Surf" - Jon Kabatt Zinn

The above quote is one that beautifully captures how I feel.  Life will always be filled with challenges and my goal was to give these kids some tools, such as Mindful Breathing, Wish Fulfilling Tree, Breathing in the Big me, to help them cope with these challenges.  Friday was our last session for this term, I am going to miss all the smiling faces, enthusiasm and energy that the kids shared with me in our Yoga class.  

We warmed-up today, by revisiting the Wish Fulfilling Tree and played a fun Yoga game that helped the kids work on their balance, attention and body awareness.   

We continued Story Yoga (I'm Gonna Like Me), and explored several Yoga poses while reinforcing the message of being comfortable with who we are.  Remind your child about Breathing in the Big Me,  when bad thoughts start bothering them, and letting go of those thoughts as they exhale.

With the older kids we played Yoga Jenga which tested our fine motor co-ordination and focus and got us moving and doing all of our favorite Yoga poses.  We also practiced butterfly breathing, another way to mindfully breathe and build present moment awareness.  

Towards the end of class the older kids reflected on ways to be kind,  I have provided them with a checklist they could use to start them off.  We wrapped up the class with a Kindness Wish Fulfilling Art and a short relaxation.

I wish everyone a safe and fun summer and look forward to seeing everyone in September :)

Suggested Activity:  Continue to practice mindful breathing (balloon breathing) with your child as a family.  I find it works very well as a bedtime routine to help calm their bodies and minds.  As we breathe mindfully, I usually have my kids say 5 positive things about themselves during each in-breath and encourage them to exhale any doubts or worries they may have.  

When spending time outside, ask your kids to come up with a Yoga Pose based on what they see and play the "What I can See, I can be" game.  For instance, if they see trees, have them do tree pose or forest of trees with siblings, or butterfly pose when you see a butterfly, flower pose, airplane pose and so forth.  I find this is a fun way to keep the practice going through the summer and foster an active imagination.