Yoga

Yay, it's yoga week at the bookworm blog! As a former yoga teacher I have been very excited to share yoga with my kids, from the moment they were born.  I read a lot of books about Mom and Baby yoga, and my very favorite one is Itsy Bitsy yoga.  It has sections based on baby stages (sitting, crawling, walking, etc.) and loads of cute songs and loving exercises.


Once the kids got a little older I found fun interactive books that sparked their imaginations in addition to inspiring them to do yoga.  The Toddler Yoga books are great for that, with simple language and colorful illustrations:

An absolutely gorgeous book of yoga poems, Twist is probably aimed at kids a bit older than my eldest (5), but we take it slow, just looking at one or two per day.  He has some interest, and I am just blown away by the imagery in the poems as well as the pictures.   Awesome.

Betcha didn't think I'd come up with a craft for yoga theme, huh?  Well, get ready to be blown away... we made eye pillows out of old socks.  Don't worry, you can get rid of that funky foot smell with a few bath herbs or essential oils.  Take a look...

We made eye pillows out of old socks.  Here's what you need:

an old sock (usually the kid's own sock is the right size for the eye pillow, but you could cut a larger one to fit)
some herbs, bath salts, scented oils, or other smelly stuff
white rice

Let your child mix the scents with the rice and then fill the sock (not too full).  Sew up the top and voila!  Homemade eye pillow.

Incidentally, this makes a nice Christmas gift for relatives, but I recommend using new socks for that variation. 

Another great activity is to color a free yoga coloring page.  It reinforces proper alignment for poses and allows for some quiet creative time with crayons.

Sometimes we feel like taking our yoga adventures to the next level-- then we go downtown to our favorite yoga studio for some fun kids' yoga classes.  I also found a few kid yoga DVDs at the library, but there's just something calming about the ambience at the studio.

That's it for this week, come back next time!