Storytime Yoga® for Kids in Killaloe County Clare, Ireland Children’s Community Féile Eile Free Fun Day

Denise Sheridan

My name is Denise Sheridan, mum of 3, preschool /after school owner and manager, story-maker, kindermusik educator and enthusiastic children’s yoga instructor and I have been teaching  yoga to my own children for 7 years, qualified as a children’s hatha yoga Instructor in 2010 and have  been teaching to preschool  (2-5) children since 2010 and after school children (5-10 yrs); started teaching mum and baby groups in 2012 and am now running an after school class in the national school every Wednesday afternoon.

Denise Sheridan's Storytime Yoga® for Kids after school program in Ireland.

Prior to finding the jewel of Storytime Yoga® for Kids I had begun mixing yoga instruction with our children’s favourite stories, songs and rhymes as I find children learn so much easier through song, story and rhyme.  Intuitively I was aware of this learning pattern one of my key takeaways from Sydney’s Storytime Yoga® is the significance of the body in yoga – and the terminology of the body remembering/ body memoirs. Until I had started Storytime Yoga® I struggled with actually defining how the body remembers movement and how we can teach this through stories and yoga.

Denise Sheridan's Storytime Yoga® for Kids after school program in Ireland.

So for me Storytime Yoga® has put a structure around where I was moving to as a teacher and has opened a world of ideas, lessons, new learnings. I also truly believe that  studying Storytime Yoga® and learning from Sydney's own experience has enabled me to become a more creative teacher, have more fun in my classes and continually challenge myself to have a creative learning yoga experience for the children in my classes.

Denise Sheridan's Storytime Yoga® for Kids after school program in Ireland.

Feile Eile is an annual children’s Arts Festival for children from school age up. In Ireland that is from 4 years up. This year it took place from 16^th to the 20^th October 2013. The big free community day was held on Saturday the 19^th of October called Feile Eile Free Fun Day.  It has been run for 5 years and is led by some of Ireland’s most dynamic and experienced facilitators. Children (4-12) are put into groups based on age and each group try out everything. This October the activities included art , puppetry, storytelling through yoga ( me!!) , song-writing, drama and dance. I was honored to be asked to join the other facilitators and happily gave up my day freely to spread Storytime Yoga® to all the children. The overall organizer, Diane Daly, had heard about my format of teaching yoga through storytelling from some of the local mums and felt it was unique and would fit very well with the overall community day.

Denise Sheridan's Storytime Yoga® for Kids after school program in Ireland.

My sister Rhona joined me for the day. Rhona is a preschool leader and kindermusik educator and has experience of teaching children at preschool level simple yoga routines  & yoga breathing routines and very experienced in crowd control!!

The day started at 10.00 and ran up until15.00 and we had six groups of 12 children in each 45-minute session  - approximately 72 children and a fun fun day.

The community day overview :

My plan :

4-6 year olds – Small  stories as I find with Yoga you need to keep the  stories active and short do you do not loose their attention -- -  the life cycle of a butterfly; a day in the life of an owl etc.. so will have 3-4  sequences ready and we may get through all 4 or only 3.

At the end we will do an animal parade of the yoga poses they have learnt -  child; cat; dog; owl; cow; cobra.

6-8 year olds – Start with the  butterfly cycle sequence from the earlier session and following on with a lovely story called hope for the flowers ( basically a little caterpillar dreams of becoming a butterfly and finds a mound of caterpillars all trying to reach to the sky...teaches patience...striving for what you want etc.... in a funny quirky way.) I am thinking if we have enough time at the end of it the kids could draw their butterflies.

8- 12 year olds - I am going to teach them sun salutation  through a story I have a few in mind but it should keep them interested.  I have some folk books from India and around the world and will see what Story I can link with  the salutation. Depending on the crowd we could get the kids to do pastel butterflies at the end.

So basically the main focus will be yoga poses/ flows/ sequences through story and if there is time depending on the group vibe  either - relaxation or drawing at the end.

My props :

12 yoga mats;  2 large colorful quilts; basket of bells; clappers ; egg shakers.

 My aims were the following:

• Initially engagement – I needed to capture the audience immediately. These were children who mostly did not know me . Came from art, music or dance workshops and would move  on to art, music and dance workshops So the biggest challenge for me was to capture their interest immediately, keep the buzz and energy levels  they came in with or if they were a bit tired particularly at the end of the day with the younger groups adapt the session to meet the children’s needs – whether we did more relaxation; quieter moods or a more lively atmosphere.
• Provide an introduction to children who have never practiced yoga before.
• Share yoga  with children from different schools, backgrounds and create a sense of involvement and community with the children through Storytime Yoga®.
• Explain how yoga creates energy and balance through story and song and can create healthy minds, spirits and bodies in our every day lives.
• Create a sense of enthusiasm and fun for the children and keep them interested and active for their 30 minutes session.
• Teach the children yoga practices which they could take away with them.

Number of sessions provided: 6 sessions of 45 minutes.

What actually happened :

As we set up for the day with the groups actually broke into different age categories based on the children that turned up that day. We ended up with 1 group of 4- 5 year olds; 2 groups of 5- 6 year olds; 2 groups of 6 – 7 & 1 group of  7-8 year olds.

The first group who came to Storytime Yoga® was a very lively group of 6- 8 year olds. Very quickly I assessed that we needed to keep a very quick pace to keep everyone interested. Each child picked a mat and I followed the following sequence. After initial introduction of who I was and what we were going to do today we started with

• Entrance ; as the children entered the room I had Global Journeys’ Fairy Garden bell music in the background until everyone had settled on their mats. I then turned this off. The bells music is immensely relaxing and gentle for both child and adult and creates a wonderful entrance mood.

• Breathing practice: 

We sat in easy pose and took 5 deep breaths in and out through our noses. I spent 5 minutes on breathing – introducing the following techniques and explained the benefits of all:

1. crocodile breath ( in & out through nose) ; Fill our lungs with oxygen ; with hands on our ribs feel all the yummy air filling us up with energy and pushing out all our used up air
2. lion breath ( in nose out through straw tongue in lions pose)  : shake away those cobwebs – I also explained if we are feeling  tired ; have colds; feeling cross or angry this is a good way to shake it all out
3. and finally buzzy bee humming leading to Om breathing. I use buzzy bee breathing to introduce meditation and ohm singing bowl technique with children – this was a very condensed version where we start of buzzing very softly and then ohm really loudly as we all come together in one big group.

• Body Warm up : I have a short  warm up sequence which I practice with kids as follows it takes 6 – 7 minutes:

1. From seated asana in easy pose raise hand above your head and take a large breath in and out.
2. Blink 10 times and shout  “eeeeeeee”  - this kids find quiet funny but it is good to help them relax  their facial muscles and get into the swing of things
3. Slow head rolls to the side : singing “Rolio” very slowly.
4. Hand windmills ( little circles from the wrist)
5. Feet circle ( holding ankles)
6. Lift feet off the floor ; spread toes and fingers and release 5 times.
7. Relax in child.

The Body Rhyme Jam : Story and song time. 

I loveeee Sydney's Nursery Rhyme Body Jam of Humpty Dumpty  - mainly because it is so simplistic and easy to incorporate strong asanas very easily for children and it is also loads of fun.

To introduced the concept of stories and yoga combined and how our  bodies will remember our asanas through active movement and singing along to Humpty Dumpty Sydney-body-jam-style we did the following :

• Starting in Mountain – big breathe; Arm raise and move to standing star position. We then started clapping and moving from one leg to the other in star style.
• Then moving to wall – I completely copied Sydney's “Wall ! Asana  - Kids love it !
• A great fall was slow motion fall into lying down star then the children became SPLATS on the ground (free form)
• We then moved to all the kings horses – horse  (camel) pose; & all the kings men, Warrior II

Could not put Humpty together again and great big cheer and clap for their great performance.

We ran through it twice with this group . With the first group this is as far as we got after 20 mins so I then moved on to Ladybird Relaxation technique from Michael Chissick & Sarah Peacocks wonderful book, The Ladybird’s Remarkable Relaxation.

Summary : All the children lie down in savasana with eyes closed and  I narrated the following:

A lovely little ladybird has been flying around all day and is becoming very tired… so everyone must stay very still and wait to see where she will land. As she lands myself & my assistant, Rhona, go around to the children and gently touch a finger/toe / shoulder or drape a light scarf on the children lying down. This got a lot of little giggles as well as giving a rest time before the children moved on to their next adventure of their day.

So now we were on a roll! With the remaining groups I was also able to follow the sequences Entrance; Breathing ; Warm up & Nursery Rhyme Body Jam and then introduce Edward Lear's poem The Owl & The Pussy Cat – first singing it with the children and then retelling it with movement :

The Poem : 

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar oh lovely Pussy, oh Pussy my love, what a beautiful pussy you are , your are. What a beautiful Pussy you are. Pussy says to the Owl You elegant fowl how charmingly sweet you sing. Oh Let us be married too long we have tarried but what will we do for a ring ? They sailed away for a year and a day to a land where the Bong Trees grow  and there is a wood a Piggy wig stood with  with a ring on the end of his nose.  Dear Pig are you willing to sell for one shilling that ring ? Said the Piggy I will So they took it away and were married  next day by a turkey  who lived on a hill. They dined  on mice and slices of quince  which they ate with a  runcible spoon  and hand in hand on the edge of the sand they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon.

Retelling the story through asana

Asana flow  1 : The Owl – seated  Buddha with slow revolving head  move to   Pussy – cat then on to boat.

Asana flow  2 : Still on floor they took Honey -- we all stirred up a big pot of honey with legs opened in V shape – and had a little discussion on how stirring slowly gave us very sweet honey! And then standing up in mountain we move into Tree – singing “ and plenty of money” before moving to tree I discussed how some people thought money grew on trees and we moved from foot on foot tree -> tree-> to swaying  palm tree.

Asana flow 3 : Moved back to seated Buddha Owl then slowly as the owl looked up to the stars above move into mountain into star and then play rock guitar… lots of fun….singing oh lovely pussy poh pussy my love what a beautiful pussy you are…..Back down to Pussycat

Asana flow 4 : move from sleepy cat ( child pose ) to waking cat / cat pose to stretchy cat ( semi sphinx pose) . Singing  “You  elegant fowl how charmingly sweet you sing. Oh Let us be married too long we have tarried but what will we do for a ring ? “.. Move to starting boat pose and before lifting feet from ground make a large circle in the air with your hands. Then in boat pose sail away for  5 movements ( a year and a day!:)) to the land back into upright seated pose using captain hand to see the land where the bong tree grows..

Asana flow 5 : Move to standing… there is a wood /Tree a piggy wig stood… I adapted frog pose for Pig pose with a scrunched up nose….back to standing mountain a large circle ring with hands. Stay in Pig pose until they took it away moving into standing and were married next day .. improvisation here used the chicken dance for turkey pose saying gobble gobble gobble.

Asana Flow 6 : for the final section I called this free flow angel dance. So we all glided around in yoga dance with large slow movements….until they danced by the light of the moon…..then move back to ground slowly and into relaxation easy pose and big clap for great performance and then moved on to the Lady bird relaxation section.

I followed this flow : Entrance -> Breathe -> Warm up ->Body humpty jam-> Owl & Pussy Cat ->relaxation for the following 3 groups 5-6  & 2 groups of  6-7. For the 7-8 year olds I did not do Humpty Dumpty Jam as I knew they would feel it was too babyish so moved directly into Owl & Pussycat so we spent our time on this.

Our last group of the day were the 4-5  year olds and were exhausted!! After our breathing and warm up we let them choose a musical instrument and just jam along to the Humpty Dumpty jam. I repeated this twice with them and gave them an extra 3-4 minutes of relaxation time going very slowly through the ladybird relaxation flow.

Overview of the day :

As an overall experience I loved the day … I was completely hoarse at the end of it could hardly talk.

From an overall learning experience – the whole day reinforced the power of story through yoga. Each child although they only had a 45-minute session went away with a good understanding of yoga poses/ asanas; good breathing foundations and great fun  with yoga. Some were even singing Humpty Dumpty later.

I did find having to adapt on the day challenging but in hindsight I actually did quite well in assessing the mood of the group and how to adapt quickly and having had prepared with watching  Sydney’s videos I found the more energetic I was the more the group mood went with me.

Since completing my day of action for Storytime Yoga® I have incorporated my learnings into my own yoga classes. I have added in listen time to my after-schoolers where we listen to one of Sydney's stories and then review it. Then role play them out. The favorites at the moment are the Peddler’s Dream, the Rabbit In the Moon, and Diamonds, Rubies and Pearls.

I find myself constantly looking for new stories from around the world and lessons which can be shared with the preschoolers – often using Buddha stories for children  and have purchased Peace Tales, World Folktales to Talk About By Margaret Read MacDonald and Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan to start building some story/asana flows for my older kids.

I have purchased a number of picture books without words to inspire story-making in our children within the preschool curriculum  -The Boy and the Airplane by Mark Pett; Wave, by Suzy Lee; One Frog Too Many by Mercer and Mayer Marian.  I am currently working on a beautiful story by Trina Paulus called Hope for the Flowers to develop a Storytime Yoga® sequence for  7 -10 year olds.

Having completed Storytime Yoga® training and my community day I feel more empowered and confident as a teacher and love being able to share stories and asanas and intertwine lessons with physical practice.

My Storytime Yoga® experience over the last 12 months has made me hungry to be the best yoga teacher I can be and I am getting fantastic feedback from parents who tell me their children cannot wait to get back to my weekly after-school class.