A couple of weeks ago, the third and second grade had the privilege of having a yoga instructor, Nikolai Blinow, come teach them some breathing techniques and partner yoga poses. She is the creator of OMpowerment yoga, which is dedicated to empower students mentally, physically, and emotionally.
First, we started with “bear breaths” or big, deep breaths to calm us down. After the class, many of the third graders remarked that this exercise helped them to calm their overactive bodies. Another said that she felt just like she was a bear preparing to hibernate!
Then the third grade partnered with second graders to do some challenging partner poses, like tree pose and child’s pose. The third graders were excellent big buddies and helped the younger students hold these poses with one leg or even with both feet in the air! After our yoga session, third graders drew body maps to illustrate how the yoga made us feel. Most wrote about how it made them happy, energized, peaceful or tired. They used symbols and/or colors to represent these feelings. Now we do yoga poses in the classroom when we need a wiggle break, to focus, or to calm down. We look forward to showing our yoga moves to our PreK buddies soon!