~A Guest Post~

Anita is an enthusiastic kids yoga teacher in Ontario and also blogs at Organic Yoga Mom. We are thrilled that she has agreed to do a Kids Yoga series for us at Healthy Green Moms so that we can learn more about introducing yoga to our children, teaching kids yoga and whatever else comes to her mind!

There are two awesome free resources to help you along your journey of introducing your children to yoga or if you are already teaching kids yoga classes. If you live in an area where there are no local classes, these resources should help inspire you.

The first resource is Marsha Wenig’s site Yoga Kids. I was lucky enough to spend some time in a class with her this spring at the Yoga Conference in Toronto. There were probably about 300 folks in the room but with Marsha’s down to earth style I felt like it was a classroom of ten. Her energy and exuberance even 20 years down the path, was such a delight to be around. Although I spent such a relatively short time with her I was excited to get back to my own classrooms with all sorts of new ideas buzzing through my head.

Yoga Kids sends out a weekly email of kid’s yoga poses. If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend you head on over to Yoga Kid’s free email sign up to take advantage of these pose suggestions. The emails will arrive weekly with a full description of the pose, instructions on how it’s done, as well as a section of activity ideas for home and the classroom. These moves are generally geared to the 6-12 age range but can be used for younger or older children as well. If you like the first one or two of these and decide that Marsha’s style is one you want to see more of, all the moves are contained in a fantastic book she has published called Yoga Kids – Educating The Whole Child Through Yoga. I have the book and use it all the time.

Another excellent resource that I frequently use is a Canadian blog Teaching Kids Yoga. Aruna often has some really great advice for your classes but she also blogs about is something which I think is super important and that is the business side of being a yoga teacher. I have not come across any other blogs which offer help in that way so if you want to teach or do so already, and you want to build your business you should absolutely head over to Teaching Kids Yoga. I have used many of her tips for my classes and she often helps me move toward a direction that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought about on my own. Even if you aren’t looking for business tips she still offers a lot of great games and skill building ideas. The past few weeks she has also had a ton of Yoga DVD giveaways.

I hope you find these two resources useful and that you get a touch of the inspiration that I get from them. Please share with us what you think of these. If you have some other great resources we’d love to hear about them!

Hey, come visit the me and leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this article, thank you for giving it a boost on social media. © All rights reserved. This post is from HealthyGreenMoms and cannot be republished without express written permission.

Kids Yoga Resources For Parents & Teachers

~A Guest Post~

Anita is mom to one beautiful girl, life partner to a wonderful man and currently living in Canada. She is an enthusiastic kids yoga teacher in Ontario and also blogs at Organic Yoga Mom. We are excited to have a piece of Anita’s time so we can learn more about Kids Yoga and whatever else comes to her mind. You can read more about her here.

I will be writing about my thoughts, views and experiences as a teacher of kids & baby yoga in the coming weeks on Healthy Green Moms. I’ll be sharing ideas, moves to try, games, products, and other topics that I hope will inform and inspire you. Whether you decide to teach and inspire kids yourself, work specifically with your child at home, or just think about yoga and children in a different way, I hope you’ll discover how much fun kids yoga can be!

Yoga has so many benefits. You can start doing yoga with your child as early as three weeks after birth.  It’s such a beautiful bonding experience for a new mom and baby and learning about your baby in a different light.  As your child grows into a toddler it is play time without any toys.  As they get into preschool it’s all about fun with animals and learning all the amazing things their body can do as well as a lot of singing.  Once they become school age it is about story telling and then about building the strength and core for a solid lifetime foundation of fitness.  As a teen, yoga can help to relieve stress and develop a solid sense of self.

Kid’s yoga is very different from adult yoga.  The moves are based on those that are found in adult yoga but they may not translate the same way.  The postures may not happen when you ask for them, they may not take place in the space you thought they would, and they may not hold the moves as long as you want.  But that’s okay.

Kids may perform the moves when you ask for it, or ten minutes, a day or a week later.  This is the way it goes when you teach kids yoga. Sometimes each and every child is with you and sometimes not, but they are always listening and observing.

All children can do yoga – regardless of age, or athletic ability, and as long as they are not moving in a way that is unsafe to themselves or others around them, whatever they are doing is good.  Around the age of eight or so children start asking their instructors about correct placement of hands and feet.  So if it doesn’t look quite right to you at the moment, that’s okay.  As long as the children are smiling – this is really what you want to see.  Being a little bit silly is how they stay engaged – they are after all, children.

Yoga can happen in a park, on the street, in your basement, or on a yoga mat. My goals in class are to always encourage children to get to know their bodies, to become aware of the ways they can move, of the different feelings within them and to associate yoga with fitness and fun (most importantly!)

I hope you will join me on this adventure.

Have you done yoga with your children before? What was your experience?

Hey, come visit the me and leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this article, thank you for giving it a boost on social media. © All rights reserved. This post is from HealthyGreenMoms and cannot be republished without express written permission.

Kids Yoga and What To Expect