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!