From the category archives:

Children’s Yoga

Mermaids and Hanuman!

November 30, 2010

Sovan Macha is a lovely mermaid that was messing with Hanuman’s rocks that he placed in the sea to make a bridge to cross to Sri Lanka to rescue Sita from the Demon Ravana. This little known version of the Ramayana comes from Cambodia. I thought it was a delightful twist to the tale. The [...]

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Music to A Mother’s Ears: Let’s Practice More Yoga, Mom!”

November 20, 2010

I give my kids the freedom to practice yoga if they want to. We have our regular home school routine of yoga and meditation in the mornings, and anything after that is voluntary. I practice my yoga, and my kids join in if they wish. My daughter on her own does handstands, and I coach [...]

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Teaching Children Yoga Philosophy Via Sims

October 27, 2010

There is an opportunity to teach yoga philosophy to children at every turn, and I teach it to my own by observing them in every day life and giving them stories and philosophy to guide them based on their experiences and issues. I got rid of the television years ago, but then the Internet came [...]

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Don’t Just Let Kids Sit and Study, Strike a Yoga Pose!

October 18, 2010

My daughter and I were working on her Oak Meadow home school English literature curriculum together. We read a folktale about a little tree that wanted to be special. So an old man carved its wood into a lovely harp, which all the towns people came out to hear. The lesson was about plot and [...]

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Yoga Home Schooling

September 21, 2010

We started our Yoga Homeschooling! It’s been going well these past few weeks. Yoga home school has a regular curriculum, yoga asana and philosophy curriculum as well as yoga home economics, such as cooking healthy, ayurvedic food and using ayurvedic herbs and vitamins. It also emphasizes sustainability and contributing to the household community with mindfulness [...]

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Creating Story Warm-Ups for Children’s Yoga

July 28, 2010

For the last few days here at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, where I have been giving the Storytime Yoga Children’s Yoga Teacher Training, we have been graced by a trickster woodchuck. His presence is welcome, as he romps through the grass, dashes into the foliage and nibbles on plants and even wanders [...]

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Storytime Yoga Kids Camp at Kripalu – the closest thing to my own school

July 24, 2010

Words can’t describe the joy I felt while teaching for 9-days straight at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts earlier this month. Well, of course there is the word EXHUSTED, but it’s of the exhilerating kind, where you just were in your bliss the whole time and you are left feeling good [...]

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Boosting self-esteem in immigrant children with yoga

May 12, 2010

Namsate! My last day at Creekside after-school program was yesterday. I reviewed with the kindergartners and first graders what they learned by asking them what can they take home with them and do this summer? Kids tell me that Mr. Bones taught them to bring and drink water, lots of kids did! That was great! [...]

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Yoga for Kindergardeners

May 7, 2010

I teach after-school yoga at Creekside Elementary school and most are Kindergarten and a few first grade. It’s a tough group, but workable. They have a hard time getting into a circle on their own, distracted by the pillows. We played the strong and steady mountain pose, in which they stood in tadasana, and I [...]

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Body-Centered Education with Storytime Yoga

March 8, 2010

My son regularly tells me how bored he is in school, sitting for six hours a day in class. “We don’t even go outside for gym,” he told me this morning. I remember how excited he was when he attended Montessori school from preschool through the second grade. His nickname was “Busy Beaver” becuase he [...]

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Every child learns at his or her own pace

November 11, 2009

Hallelujiah! After years of wondering what was wrong with my daughter and why she wasn’t learning, after thousands of dollars in tutoring expenses and buying coffee at coffee shops so I could work while I waited for her sessions, after countless hours of frustration, fear, worry and desperation, after complete exhaustion as a single mother [...]

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Yoga and a Story for Young Girls’ Self-Esteem

October 27, 2009

Yesterday I taught an afterschool girls club at Emerald Elementary in Broomfield, Colorado. It was the second time I had visited this group of girls, and it was great because the social worker who invited me, Jo-lynn Yoshihara Daly, was a friend from high school. The girls are all Hispanic fourth and fifth grade. I [...]

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The Yoga Rocks Fest in Lyons

August 25, 2008

Namaste!Well, what a gorgeous place to hold a yoga festival! Lyons, Colorado, just north of Boulder, has this incredible park that used to be an old farm. It’s right next to the river and these stunning out croppings of rocks. I swear I’ve had several past lives as a Native American, so these special natural [...]

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Mixing it up with Rhyme, Rhythm and Repetition

July 30, 2008

I am teaching for eight weeks at the Commerce Child Care center on the NIST site in Boulder. These are all preschool kids, most of them 3 and 4 and one group of 5 year olds. They are a bit above average in energy, so my regular routines, nor my mystery bag of tricks, could keep [...]

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A New Kind of Children’s Yoga Class

June 5, 2008

Well, my first children’s yoga class at the Storytime Yoga studio in Boulder went well! We have elementary kids of all ages. I was happy to have them in my space created just for children and families. I used the Shipwrecked Sailor from Egypt about courage and seeing the good that comes out of the [...]

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Teaching Meditation to Older Children using Personal and Traditional Stories

March 6, 2008

Namaste!Last night my 7-year-old daughter asked to meditate with me. Her 11-year-old step-sister was being mean to her, she said.  Of course we will meditate! I said. She brought up her 10-year-old brother. We lit the candle, and naturally now that they are older, beyond the preschool and early elementary stage, we can talk about [...]

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Jesus and Yoga

January 16, 2008

We’re on a roll with my kids back into yoga and practicing with me. I’ve noticed that with my son and daughter, this small group is like a private yoga therapy session for children. There is a different dynamic than a group, so things are slower, more intimate and personalized. We continued on the poses [...]

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Teaching Fourth Graders Yoga – the great change

January 15, 2008

Last night I practiced yoga with my kids. Like I said in the earlier post, I have begun again, not because of my need to teach or practice with them or thinking that they “should do yoga’ but because they chose to. What I discovered was amazing. My son, Alejandro, is going to be 10 [...]

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Celebrating the Season in Community

December 13, 2007

It had snowed heavily all day and I was so worried that people wouldn’t come to our school’s first Community Wellness Night, Tuesday Dec. 11.  Roads were slick, but schools had been open. The day before it was sunny and we were expecting 64 adults and 77 children. But we had a fantastic turn out [...]

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Children’s Yoga

October 31, 2007

In Mondays’ class, during snack children talked about their dreams and also what yoga they had practiced during the week. Many used breathing, to calm down anger or fear. Many did the sun salutation. Seems to be the most favored yoga at home! The kids wanted to start with relaxation again, as many seemed tired [...]

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