Hola, amigos!

We did something a little different at Yoga Storytime at Baby Moon recently. In April, we will launch a new session of Yoga Storytime as well as a new class called ¡Hola, Niños! Want to know an important key ingredient for helping kids develop language skills? Interaction! ¡Hola, Niños! is all about interaction. Kids ages 3-5 will be exposed to the Spanish language and to Latino cultures through stories, songs, creative movement and play. To give you a taste of what this program will look like, we did a little mashup of Yoga Storytime and ¡Hola, Niños! In both yoga and language learning, practice is essential, so here's what we did if you'd like to keep it going at home. Just don't forget the most important part - ¡Diviértanse! Have fun!

We started off with our same welcome song, but with a slight modification in the greeting:

"Hola, It's Yoga Time" (to the tune of "Hello Thumbkin")

Hola [NAME], Hola [NAME]

It's yoga time! It's yoga time!

We're very glad to see you. We're very glad to see you.

Ring the chime. Ring the chime.

We found a nice, tall happy seat to breathe our balloon breath. I use a nifty little prop called a mini Hoberman sphere for this breath so the kids can visualize breath going in and filling up their internal balloon and deflating it as they breathe out. 

We did several more warm-ups that allowed us to get to know some of the names of body parts in Spanish. Here is some of the key vocabulary:

cabeza = head

hombros = shoulders

bariga = tummy

rodillas = knees

pies = feet

dedos = can refer to toes or fingers

ojos = eyes

orejas = ears

boca = mouth

nariz = nose

We moved around the room a bit with a rhyme that encourages us to walk (caminar), hop (brincar), run (correr) and stop (parar). And of course, "Cabeza, hombros, rodillas, pies = Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes." Here is a cute video with a bilingual version of this well-known tune.

Our first book was My Friends = Mis amigos by Taro Gomi. There are lots of actions in this book, so it's a super fun one to read and act out at home.

We let the book inspire a round of yoga movement which I discovered from the awesome website Kids Yoga Stories. There's lots of great stuff there to explore, in English and en español.

We continued exploring Spanish body parts with a very fun and silly song, "Mi cuerpo hace música" from El doble de los amigos = Twice as Many Friends by Sol y Canto. Then we came back to seated for our next book, ¡Fiesta! by Ginger Foglesong Gibson, which is a simple counting story in English and Spanish.

Then we did a little more counting with a bilingual version of the song "Diez Deditos = Ten Little Fingers". Wiggle and tickle hands and fingers as you sing!

Dos manitas, diez deditos / Dos manitas, diez deditos / Dos manitas, diez deditos / Cuéntalos conmigo

Two little hands and ten little fingers / Two little hands and ten little fingers / Two little hands and ten little fingers / Count them with me now

Uno, dos, tres deditos / cuatro, cinco, seis deditos / siete, ocho, nueve deditos / ¡diez deditos son!

One little, two little, three little fingers / four little, five little, six little fingers / seven little, eight little, nine little fingers / ten little fingers all!

To keep cooling down we sang a lovely song from Lianne Bassin called "There is Love inside My Heart." Her CD Breathe In looks like it will be awesome! I can't wait for its release. I'm sure it will be one we will use often in Yoga Storytime. 

I believe one of the advantages of knowing another language is that it helps us to better connect with and understand people from other cultures. This is especially true with Spanish, as there is great diversity within the cultures and countries that make up the Spanish-speaking world. I believe that knowing each other helps us spread peace. So our last story was one of my favorite books for kids, The Peace Book by Todd Parr.

Finally, we were ready to relax and rest...aaaahhhh. It was a great joy to play yoga with so many sweet yogi families in English and Spanish! I hope to see you again in April at Baby Moon in Yoga Storytime (Tuesdays at 4 PM) or ¡Hola, Niños! (Thursdays at 5:30 PM) or both! Until then, thanks for reading and NAMASTE! 

Swim with the Fishes!

Hi there little yogis, families and caregivers! I had a whale of a time swimming with the fishes with you in Yoga Storytime at Baby Moon this week. Thanks for coming and making it so much fun! If you want to keep the fun going at home, here's what we did.

We started off as always, finding a nice, happy seat and singing our "Yoga Time" song. Take a look at last week's Buggin' Out class post if you'd like a refresher on the words and tune. We also continued to use the "Breathe It In, Breathe It Out" song to warm up our bodies.

To continue connecting with the breath, we practiced our Whale Breath. Imagine a whale spurting water out of its blowhole at the surface of the ocean; this was our inspiration for our Whale Breath. To practice, first find a happy seat (tall, comfortable seated position). Take a nice deep inhalation through the nose. Then forcefully exhale the breath through the mouth, strongly enough to make an audible sound. Take a couple of regular breaths and then come back to the Whale Breath again.

Our first book was Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins, which is simply a celebration of fish of all sorts. This book is great to use one-on-one with kids in all kinds of ways. It rhymes, which helps reinforce the development of phonological awareness, an important early literacy skill critical to the decoding process in later learning to read. It provides lots of opportunities for interaction, such as counting, describing what one sees and acting out or imitating the various shapes presented in the illustrations. It promotes a lovely message about embracing diversity - this little fishy has all kinds of different friends and they are all beautiful! And, there is a nice invitation specifically for moms and little fish kiddos to cuddle together at the end - who doesn't love that!

I brought out a flannelboard that I made to provide some visual stimulation as we sang "The Sharks in the Sea" to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus." You can take a look at the flannelboard pieces on my other blog if you are interested in making your own. Here's how we practiced:

The sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp... - Stretch arms out to the sides and clap together in front of the body

The lobsters in the sea go pinch, pinch, pinch... - From table top, stretch one arm out in front of body and make a pinching motion with the hand. Release arm back to table and repeat on the other side.

The clams in the sea go open and shut... - Sit in staff pose with arms lifted overhead (open) and bend forward into forward bend touching the toes (shut). Rise up and repeat.

The seahorse in the sea rocks back and forth... - Kneel up high on knees and rock body slightly forward and backward.

The octopus in the sea goes wiggle, wiggle, wiggle... - Stand up and wiggle your whole body!

The kids in the sea jump up and down...

Where do all these creatures live? In the sea? If we wanted to go to sea, how would we get there? Hmmm....in a boat! We spent a little time practicing boat pose on our own and with partners. This is a fun pose to practice together at home while singing, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Personal side note, I know as an adult, I look back on a lot of nursery rhymes that I learned as a kid and find them rather disturbing. This one is an obvious exception. I think I understand it and appreciate more and more the older that I get. It's a great fit for a yoga class!

Time for another story, this time Swimmy by Leo Lionni. This Caldecott Honor book is a children's classic. There is a lot to talk about regarding emotions when sharing this book with kids. After all, it starts out with Swimmy's whole family being eaten right in front of him - yikes! But don't let that turn you away from the book. You can talk about the tuna fish being a tuna fish, simply doing what tuna fish do, and how that affected Swimmy. Equanimity is a tough concept even for well-adjusted adults, but this book presents a kid-friendly way to talk about it. You can talk about Swimmy's sad and lonely feelings, and how he was able to recover. And you can talk about Swimmy's bravery and the clever way that he helped his new fish family defend themselves from the bigger fish by working together. It's a classic for a reason!

We let the sea creature friends that Swimmy met inspire another round of creative movement:

jellyfish - standing forward fold with dangling arms

lobster - table pose, stretching arms out to pinch one at a time

seaweed - high kneeling, swaying from side to side

strange fish - bow pose

eel - locust pose

sea anemones - crescent moon pose

big fish - boat pose (individually or with a partner)

By now we needed some silly movement, so we sang and danced along to "The Goldfish" from The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band by Laurie Berkner.

One of the parts of Swimmy that I really like is the idea of working together, that we are stronger as a group than any one of us is on our own. So we played around with some group movement, like a school of fish working together. We used this activity to begin to cool down. You can do any movements together that you like if you have a group to play with. If it's just two, try mirroring each other's movements instead.

To continue cooling down we did read Breathe by Scott Magoon. We finished as we began with a few rounds of Whale Breath. Then we rested and sang goodbye to all our yoga friends.

Thanks for coming to another round of Yoga Storytime at Baby Moon! We will start up a new, three-week session on Tuesdays at 4 PM beginning April 7, 2015. Hope to see lots of you then. Until the next time, have fun at home and NAMASTE!