We've all heard about the benefits of meditation practice, but how do we start, especially with kiddos? Kidding Around Yoga is here to help! We've created this 30-day MEDITATION CALENDAR to provide you and your family (or your school classroom) with a daily meditation...
Yoga Builds Self-Esteem
You’ve probably heard that yoga is beneficial for a growing kid’s body, but did you know that it’s more than just a great physical exercise? It’s got a whole host of benefits including building a healthy self-esteem. Parents and teachers everywhere want nothing more...
Gimme a Break – a Yoga Break!
It seems there's never an end to the to-do list, for you or for your kiddos. I'm here to tell you to give yourself, and your children, a break! A YOGA break, that is! A short break during work time has been shown to have real benefits for children (and adults) of all...
Create a Calm Down Box
Creating a Calm Down Box is a fun and practical activity to try at home with your own children, in your classroom, or in your next Kids Yoga class! Making a Calm Down Box is more than likely a long-term project. The more we learned about how to calm down, the more we...
Savasana – Floating on a Cloud
At the end of each of my yoga classes (both kids and adults), I invite my students to tune out the noise from the rest of the world, pull the energy they’ve scattered to everyone else back to themselves, find a comfortable lying position, and just rest. This sacred...
Quick Calm for Kids
The constant wiggling. Bouncing. Darting eyes and fidgety fingers. Sometimes it can be really tough for our little people to just be still. Whether in a formal school environment, sitting at the dinner table, or just learning to control their reactions, teaching...
Why Should Children Practice Yoga?
“For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.” -Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. from The Body Keeps the Score The basic elements of a yoga practice (movement, breath work, and meditation) help...
5 Habits for Happiness
First of all, how awesome is the job title "Happiness Researcher"? Apparently it is a real career and Shawn Achor is just that - a happiness researcher out of Harvard University and author of The Happiness Advantage. His TedTalk on happiness and success is one of the...
Get To Know Your Brain!
It's funny, isn't it? The place we spend the most time, day and night, is the exact same place we know the least about. Our brain is the ultimate mystery. The bunch of gooey cells and invisible stringy nerves that inhabit our skulls control EVERYTHING in our lives....
Practicing Self-Regulation with Children’s Yoga
Self-regulation is an often overlooked, yet quite teachable, tool we can provide the littles in our lives. In all honestly, I feel like it’s only been my adulthood exposure to yoga that has really helped me develop the ability to calm myself down, think through my...
The (Scientific) Reasons to Practice Yoga with Your Children
There are A LOT of activities for children to participate in these days, aren't there? Every sport ever invented (including some straight from fictional stories, like Quidditch) has a team kids can try out for. Your three year old likes wearing a tutu? There's about a...
Mindful Moments to Welcome Fall
Here in the northern hemisphere, we are stepping deeper into the autumn season. The temperature changes, the colors change and the daylight changes all affect our children in obvious and subtle ways. Let's help them embrace the inevitability of change and the beauty...
Kids NEED Restorative Yoga, Too!
Today's blog author is Kaden, an 11-year old Yogi (pictured below) This all started when my mother, my grandmother, and I were going over to a yoga studio to do a class on restorative yoga. I was really excited because this would be my first restorative yoga class. We...
When We All Need a Time Out
Let’s talk about some mindfulness practices to handle life as we all now know it, this weird ride we are all on. When we are blindsided by huge changes in life, we tend to want to find steady ground. It isn’t always easy to do this, especially when little ones are...
Modeling Self-Care
We often talk about self-care and why it is important to practice it, but we fail to mention that it is beneficial for the people around us too! When it comes to yoga, it is a definite form of self-care. It allows us to take care of our physical body through movement,...