Yoga for children is nothing like yoga for adults; it has to be fun! If you are all “Om Shanti” and “Namaste”, you are unlikely to be able to keep up with the children in your class. Children’s classes are, and should be, fast, loud, dramatic and a bit crazy (in a good, fun way of course!).
Even with all of this fun and excitement, there comes a time in the weekly classes when your students will want to do more than just play yoga; most students naturally develop a desire to, gradually, improve at it.
Below are 10 creative and practical ways to help children to improve their poses.
How to Help the Children Do Yoga Poses Better
1. Using Props -- You can have the children reach farther in the Seated Forward Bend (Sandwich Pose) by luring them to reach towards a toy. They can be encouraged to bend back farther in the Cobra Pose by stretching toward a puppet with their nose. In the Candle Pose, the children come into a higher and better pose by reaching toward your hand or a doll with their feet.
2. Yoga Problem -- Come to the center of the circle and assume a yoga pose in an awkward or wrong way (you can also ask for a volunteer to do it). Then, one at a time, have each child come to the center, walk around the person who is in the yoga problem, and make one adjustment. Continue until the posture is perfect and then choose a new posture problem. This is an excellent, hands-on way to learn how to do the poses correctly!
3. Yoga Sculptor -- Done in pairs, one child starts as a lump of clay resting in Child’s Pose while the other moves him and sculpts him, one adjustment at a time, into an amazing yoga pose statue. I usually don’t fix the children’s creations, but if you want to, you can go around to all the sculptures and suggest small corrections to the artist that might make the pose more comfortable and steady.
4. Sculpture Art Studio — You, the teacher, will be the sculptor in this game! This exercise gives you the opportunity to adjust everyone in their poses.
5. Yoga Workshop — This is the best way to teach children how to improve their poses!
You can take five minutes of each class to teach the children how to do a certain pose better. The rest of the class is still totally amazing, crazy fun! Only these five minutes are a bit more serious.
In these five minutes you take one pose and you teach the children how to do that one pose better. Teach them how to:
- Go into and out of the pose
- Do variations in the pose
- Do it in pairs and in a group
6. Yoga Picture and Art Gallery -- Take photos of your students doing their favorite poses and proudly display them in your studio. Use them as a guide to remind the group how to do the poses. You can even hang them in fun sequences for the group to practice and let the students rearrange them once in a while.
7. Pose of the Month -- Choose one recurring pose to work on perfecting for a month! Explore the pose from every angle, using your body, your friends and your imagination.
- How many different animals can this pose be?
- Can this pose move in some way and become a traveling pose?
- Draw pictures of the pose
- Invent partner poses and group poses based on this pose
- Make up and sing songs about this special pose
- Explore variations of the pose
- Make special sequences using these variations
- Teach the children all of the cool benefits of this pose
8. Yoga World Records — It sounds competitive, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on the student’s strengths, and find something that everyone is good at. You can be as silly and creative as you like! You can even invent group records and try to break them together! Your students are sure to make a greater effort than they usually do and improve their poses.
Make your Yoga World Record Chart, and proudly display it in your classroom. It may look similar to this:
YOGA WORLD RECORDS
The Talent
The Winner
The Record
The Winner
The Record
Jumping the most times in Frog pose
Oli
10,000 jumps!
Oli
10,000 jumps!
Most convincing monkey behavior
Gopala
Non-stop!
Gopala
Non-stop!
Longest standing Yoga Tree
Angel
Six minutes!
Angel
Six minutes!
Largest Human Pyramid
Class Four
15 people!
Class Four
15 people!
Staying still the longest
Emily
10 minutes (Starfish pose)
Emily
10 minutes (Starfish pose)
Tallest tower of ice cream scoops
(Stacked child poses)
Delphin, Meika, Kelby, Curtis and Billy
5 scoops, YEAH!
(Stacked child poses)
Delphin, Meika, Kelby, Curtis and Billy
5 scoops, YEAH!
Most convincing animal sound
Indigo
Horse
Indigo
Horse
9. Make it Beautiful -- This is an instruction I use a lot with children. When I tell them “Make it Beautiful”, it helps them move through the poses with more awareness. Instead of jumping in and out of poses and flinging our legs and arms all over (which is ok in a children’s yoga class to start), we move in an attentive and careful way. We learn to appreciate our bodies and the magic that makes all of its movements, and yoga, so beautiful.
10. Practice -- Practice makes perfect, so just keep doing it again and again. There are no magic tricks here.
A note about adjusting children in poses:
In general, we do not adjust children in the poses; rather, we demonstrate and let them imitate us and do the pose in a way that is comfortable for them. We are all different, and if you try to make everyone do the pose exactly the same way, you are sure to hurt someone.
Of course, if you see a child doing a pose in a way that may be harmful to them, you should come and help them, slowly and gently. When you deal with more challenging poses, a few deep breaths always help to make it easier and better!
Gopala Amir Yaffa