Yoga isn’t becoming part of the national elementary school curriculum any time soon. But it is showing up in physical education programs, recess and break-period activities, and even classrooms, integrated into topics including mathematics, art, and science.

Three organizations—YogaKids, of Long Beach, Indiana; Yoga Ed., of Los Angeles; and Yoga’d Up, of London—have launched training programs that educate yoga teachers and school teachers in the U.S. and the U.K. on how to adapt their teaching to appeal to the short attention spans and special needs of young children. These programs also help yoga teachers get established in school systems, get funding for their programs, and, in some cases, go on to become educators who train the teachers who will ultimately integrate yoga into the classroom.
Yoga as a Learning Tool

All three programs use movement as an integrative method for learning. “When you give [kids] yoga poses, use visualization, and allow them to move their bodies, their whole learning ability goes up several notches,” says Marsha Wenig, founder of YogaKids. Yoga Ed.’s Kalish agrees that children learn best by doing. “When you teach kids, it’s not about telling them—it’s about creating experiences for them where they connect the dots, and create new dots.”

“The YogaKids program helps children learn how to control their energy so that they can focus and concentrate better,” adds Amy Haysman, coordinator of the program. “It teaches breathing techniques and poses that help them think more clearly.” For example, bunny breath, short inhalations through the nose and a long exhale through the mouth, can energize kids who need to get focused in order to take a test. Haysman has been hired by schools in Georgia to incorporate yoga into academic classes and physical education programs. In one program, called “Reading Comes Alive with Yoga,” teachers take a book, picture, or story and practice yoga poses associated with animals or objects in the story. “It helps the kids feel like they’re not passively listening. It’s interactive,” Haysman says.

Chair Pose
Utkatasana
(OOT-kah-TAHS-anna) utkata = powerful, fierce

Step by Step

Stand in Tadasana. Inhale and raise your arms perpendicular to the floor. Either keep the arms parallel, palms facing inward, or join the palms.

Exhale and bend your knees, trying to take the thighs as nearly parallel to the floor as possible. The knees will project out over the feet, and the torso will lean slightly forward over the thighs until the front torso forms approximately a right angle with the tops of the thighs. Keep the inner thighs parallel to each other and press the heads of the thigh bones down toward the heels.

Firm your shoulder blades against the back. Take your tailbone down toward the floor and in toward your pubis to keep the lower back long.

Stay for 30 seconds to a minute. To come out of this pose straighten your knees with an inhalation, lifting strongly through the arms. Exhale and release your arms to your sides into Tadasana.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.