Sydney Solis using Kids Yoga Story Kits Kamishibai Cards of the Most Beautiful Heart at the Light House Children's Museum in DeLand
I feel so blessed to be a mother and kids yoga teacher. In the eleven years since I started Storytime Yoga®, stories and yoga have been an integral part of my and my kids' lives. It has sustained us through tragedy, trials and a lot of travels and fun! I have been honored to teach thousands of kids, parents and teachers the joy, wisdom and healing of yoga and story! It's great to see how kids yoga has flourished over the years and all the amazing things that Storytime Yoga® trainees have created. The best part was that I was able to teach my own kids over the years with values I hold dear to me during our yoga home schooling sessions.
I've slowed down and had no desire to run around so much teaching classes or flying to conferences or presenting here or there. I didn't want to make my business into some corporate behemoth that capitalism is always pushing you to do. I just wanted to be a mom and do yoga and storytelling with my kids and neighbors! My kids were just 3 and 5 when I started out teaching. They have now grown into bright, happy, healthy teenagers now! So as I grow older too, I still find that I teach out of my own practice and life.
Little kids love making up their own stories with yoga! Teacher education at University of Central Florida with Deirdre Englehart Ph.D.
It's been a year almost that the kids and I made the leap from living in St. Croix, USVI to DeLand, Florida. I moved to Hayden Avenue, an amazing street that is filled with artists, writers, filmmakers and yogis in this cute, historic and pedestrian friendly town. I still can garden year-round and continue my values of low-consumption, healthy cooking and being a Householder Yogini and educating my kids with yoga and story. Storytime Yoga® is suited for preschoolers and elementary kids, while Mythic Yoga I created is great for older kids.
But I still love those little ones, and truly the most important yoga teaching you can possibly do if you want to see change in the world is to work with children. So! I am delighted that the work continues here, as I grow older, slow down even more, but still connect with kids in the neighborhood! As a kids yoga teacher, the best work you can do will be with your own family and neighbors! Especially as you grow older. Crone yoga I say! And the role of a storytelling yoga teacher is an awesome role to step into and spread the wisdom of elders!
Mandy and Trenton come to my house to learn and play the Storytime Yoga® way!
I've started teaching special classes at the Light House Children's Museum downtown. It's such a great place for families to come and learn and play. I love to use the Kamishibai storytelling cards in the Storytime Yoga® Kids Yoga Story Kits to help youngsters retell the story I tell with yoga poses to play while they learn literacy. I am going to give a Jean E.R. Straub Scholarship to my local DeLand Public Library, which is two blocks from my house! It will enable librarians to have free teacher training materials in the Storytime Yoga® method and I will coach them to put on kids yoga classes in the library. I'm doing that for the Douglass County, Colorado public library system where my late sister worked as a reference librarian. I'm also working with Deirdre Englehart, Ph.D. and early childhood education faculty member at the University of Central Florida on an amazing project. Stay tuned!
Trenton is learning about food and healthy eating!
The greatest joy to teach though are the kids in my neighborhood. I love to see 2-year-old Trenton and his mom, Mandy, and dog J.J. stroll by. They come to play in the little playhouse at my house, check out the garden and learn healthy eating and connect to nature and have a relationship to food.
It's never too early to present ayurveda for kids in a simple way like showing a tomato plant! I still have all my little toys and puppets little kids (and grownups!) love. He is learning yoga and stories, and Mandy is learning how to tell stories too.
She's already a teacher and is getting her master's degree in speech therapy now. She's a single mom too, so we as women always bond with our sisters! I hope that you, as a kids yoga teacher or parent always know that your best work is always that in your immediate environment.
Little children at the Queen of Bohemia's Storytime Yoga® Playhouse!
It reminds me of the Tolstoy story of the Three Questions! A King asked, what is the most important thing to do at all times? Who are the most important people to be with at all times? When is the best time to do all things? It came down to the present moment, to do the task at hand, be with the one you are with, do it in the present moment with awareness!
How you use your own yoga practice to show up to the moment, breathe, connect with others, make community and have a thriving neighborhood that includes being part of that village that helps raise other kids. Many mothers do we have when we grow up! Sharing yoga and telling stories to youngsters is a great gift. May you do it always regardless of your stage in life or where you are living. OM SHANTI! Teach kids yoga! Tell stories!
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