Growing up, ALL my close friends became classroom teachers. My Dad was a teacher for 35 years and my Mom worked for the school board. For most of my life, I was surrounded by teachers day and night. (I actually didn't know the regular world worked through the summer until I was 10!)
Classroom teachers will always have my heart. And I firmly believe (especially today) they need ALL the support they can get. This is why I've made a list of 15 ways classroom teachers can integrate yoga into a school day. Check out some of the crafty things I've come up with below.
15 Ways Classroom Teachers Can Integrate Yoga into a School Day:
Begin the morning saying hello to the sun. Right after announcements or the land acknowledgement, have your students reach their arms up to the sky to say good morning to the sun. You can leave it at that or encourage them to bring their hands down to the floor to say good morning to the earth as well. If this gets old, just have them do a good old stretch however feels good to them.
Mindful breathing during transitions - Ask your students to consciously take a slow breath in and out. This should be done after putting away the old task and starting the new one.
Embodiment Breaks - Have them plant both feet firmly on the floor and feel their feet in their shoes, you can also bring their attention to their hands.
Sense Check-In - Ask them to pause and notice one thing they smell and one thing they feel, or one thing they see and one thing they taste.
Internal Body Check-In - Pause during the day to ask them to identify one thing they can feel inside their body (interoception).
Before a test do a full body shake - They can imagine they're shaking out all the nerves and anxiety, resetting their nervous system for the task ahead. They can shake out all the stuff they don't need to remember and keep all the important information they've worked so hard to this point to know.
Brain Breaks - Get them to stop what they're doing and do a more complex yoga pose. This will be most helpful if the head is below the heart, and shaking or balance poses are most effective. Ex: jellyfish: forward fold and shake, triangle pose, pyramid pose, side bends, warrior 3).
Weekly Mantras - "I am learning", "I can make mistakes", "This feels hard because it is hard", "I am proud of myself", "I will keep trying". You could institute Mantra Moments where they come back to the mantra and repeat it to themselves 3 times when they need to.
Have a basket of fidgets in the room that children can get if they need something to do with their hands. Trust that they will use them appropriately.
Have them keep a gratitude journal and add one thing each day at the end of the day.
Have them keep a trigger and calm journal (both in the same book). Each time they're triggered they write down what caused it. Then they write down how their nervous system recalibrated afterwards (calm).
Create a calm down corner and a sensory corner - these are two different things. Calm corners have a weighted blanket, pillows, and calm images. Here, stillness is mandatory. A sensory corner has sensory-rich items (silks, feathers, rocks, fidgets, pop-its, worry stones). In sensory corners kids are not required to be still. They are there to regulate themselves.
Mindful Story time - read a story or have a child narrate a story and have them do poses/actions throughout.
If children are in conflict, encourage them to talk about it themselves. Then have them try a partner pose together afterwards.
Body scans - ages 6+ - do brief and simple body scans before or after a transition to a new activity. For example: Close down eyes - I notice my head, my shoulders, my chest, my tummy, my hips, my legs, my feet, my arms, my hands.
I hope these ideas can be helpful for you whether you're a classroom teacher, kids yoga teacher, or work with kids in any other capacity.
And if you want more kids yoga in your classroom, one of our highly-skilled kids yoga teachers is ready for you. Start here.