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 them still. I decided to scratch everything and make up new stuff!One thing is using rhymes and songs. Children learn through rhyme, rhythm and repetition, the three Rs. I've been using a lot of nonsense poetry and rhyming stories that the children love and laugh to.I always love using props, and with little children they are really essential. I have this little wooden toy of little chickens feeding that I picked up in Mexico this winter. It's really cute and I love collecting things like this! But as I used the toy I said, "What are these?" And they replied, "chickens." "WHat do chickens say?" and they all go "Bawk, bawk bawk!" (Working with children is so darn delightfully fun!"  I told them in Spanish they say, "pio, pio, pio!" and they practiced that a bit. Then I played the toy and sang the traditional Mexican song of Los Pollitos and told them to join in when they heard "pio, pio, pio." I tell them that chicken in Spanish is pollo, and that a little chicken is a pollito. Los pollitos dicen, pio pio pio, cuando tienen hambre, cuando tienen frio, pio, pio, pio. Pio, pio, pio.The little chicken say, pio, pio, pio, when they are hungry and when they are cold.   After singing it a few times we do the chicken pose. It is the eagle pose, garduasana. I break it down into very slow segments. And the kids just do what they can and have fun! We have the beak and go, "Bawk, bawk, bawk! and pio pio pio!" And then they run around the room. gads! The other teachers tell me that all of them have trouble with kids running around the room. Whew! However, still when I tell one of my oral stories, every child, no matter how wiggly and high energy that you have a hard time keeping still, is focused and listening to me and still. It's magic. That inner magic that stories bring. That's the yoga! Love and Peace,Sydney Solis