Classroom yoga
I read this article on ways that yoga can be beneficial in schools and the main idea I really loved was beginning the day with a “Be Well” discussion. The be well discussion sounds like it would touch on physical and mental health as well as social and emotional learning. Students would also have the opportunity to practice gratitude during the discussion and then it is followed by 5-10 minutes of yoga inspired movement and breathing. Then, after lunch time there would be 10 minutes set aside for “quiet mindfulness” where students can quietly choose to colour or read etc to regulate after lunch.
This is the sort of routine I would love to introduce! The webpage goes into more detail of what the set up actually looks like. The main take away for me was that the overall practice acted like a reset for students throughout the day and helped bring them back to their baseline. Obviously the way it’s designed and practiced would look different in various classrooms but I like this general idea.
The article also touched on the ways they noticed improvements in the classroom and here are some of the main things it helped
There are many benefits to yoga in a classroom and it’s really cool to see some places that have tried it and noticed firsthand the difference it made. There were also a lot of ideas in that article I liked. One in particular – yoga in the classroom helped to calm the teacher so lead to an overall nicer classroom climate. I think it really indicates how the teacher sets the tone, so if they are calm the students will react to that and they will be calmer.
One thing I am really curious about is at what age I could introduce a more traditional type of yoga class to students. It’s easy to see high school and even middle school students would be able to participate but I am curious how engaged younger students would be if it wasn’t a) very short or b) pitched to them as a game. Studio classes are typically an hour long – too long for primary especially. But I wonder if they would follow along for 10 minutes of traditional style yoga.
