Fitness Fun! – Yoga Lessons at Kawana Elementary School

Sally McLeod, AmeriCorps Mentor at Kawana Elementary
 

3rd Graders doing Yoga at Kawana Elementary

As a mentor and specialist at Kawana Elementary, it’s not always easy coming up with fun and innovative lesson plans. In my search for something fun and unique, I decided to take a look at previous specialist lesson plans from past years. In my search I came upon something truly inspiring; yoga for kids!

I thought yoga would be a great activity to do with the third grade! I would introduce an alternative way of exercising and keeping healthy, which a lot of the kids had never been exposed to. Some aspects that I included in my lesson were different breathing techniques, yoga postures, and other calming affects.

At the beginning of our week, I introduced the concept of yoga. I discussed what it is, its origin, and why it is useful. We then proceeded to go into our first breathing exercise. These breathing exercises were a great opener into our lesson. All of the students were asked to close their eyes and relax while given a calming visual to imagine themselves in. This really slowed up the pace and allowed students to instill a state of peace within themselves as well as a oneness with what they were imagining.

After our breathing exercises, we moved into the different yoga positions. While moving into different positions it was important for the students to understand what each position meant, so that they were able to embody all of the qualities themselves. Some poses students were asked to embody were warrior, tree, and mountain. Characteristics of these poses included strength, confidence, trust, as well as other great characteristics to promote good self-esteem and awareness.

At the end of our week, I was truly blown away at how much the students had taken from this lesson. I really felt that they were in tune and more aware of their surroundings and each other. Yoga seemed to have a real breakthrough upon these kids! They took the instructions I had given them whole heartedly and I couldn’t have asked for more!