What is Yoga 4 Classrooms?

No child wants to feel uncomfortable, cranky or anxious, or to get in trouble because of hyperactive behavior. Children are intrinsically joyful, peaceful, and compassionate. But as the distractions of the external world increase and stress takes over, it can become challenging for many of them children to connect with their authentic, peaceful selves. In fact, it is my belief, and one of the cornerstones of ChildLight Yoga's Yoga 4 Classrooms program, that without having the time and space for reflection and connection, children ‘forget’ that they have the ability to do so at all.

To be successful, creative learners and compassionate, respectful and self-aware human beings, children must be given opportunities to draw their awareness back away from the sometimes overwhelming distractions of the outside world. In doing so, children are brought into the present moment, a place where they can pause, truly hear and feel, reflect and learn. A few deep breaths, physical movement or stretching to reconnect the body/mind, and moments for quiet reflection, are often a quick and easy way to ‘reset’ the nervous system for calm and focus. It is also in this place that children develop the ability to know, understand and appreciate their true nature. Empowering children to connect within at will, is giving them the gift of knowing inner wisdom, confidence, joy, compassion and contentedness.

Science has shown, and educators have experienced first-hand, that when children are anxious, frustrated or stressed, it is nearly impossible for them to learn. It is only from a relaxed, present state of mind and body that our children can be psychologically and physiologically learning-ready. Right now, more than ever before, school teachers and admistrators are searching for a means to this end.

As Founder of ChildLight Yoga, I have had the privilege of sharing yoga with thousands of children and families in yoga studios, gyms, and schools. Trained in part by Yoga Ed.™, a nationally-recognized company focused on bringing the benefits of yoga into schools, I was inspired and challenged by the classroom teachers I encountered to create a program specifically designed for the classroom environment. There was no such program in existence, so after two years of research, development and test piloting at local schools, Yoga 4 Classrooms™ was born.

Yoga 4 Classrooms™ is a low-cost, fun and effective tool for teachers to use with their students for a peaceful and productive classroom. Through the use of Yoga 4 Classrooms activities, teachers can provide their students with opportunities to grow physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. This, in turn, will help them to connect with themselves and others with compassion, understanding and clarity. The activities promote self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-confidence - the foundations of exceptional learning and a lifetime of health and wellness.

Y4C™ features 65 yoga and mindfulness-based activities, divided into six categories: Let’s Breathe, At Your Desk, Standing, Loosen Up, Imagination Vacation, and Be Well. Each activity includes fully-illustrated instructions, discussion points, sub-activities, and educational tie-ins, for a total of over 200 beneficial classroom practices.

The activities were specially chosen for their suitability for the typical classroom space. That means all activities can be done standing beside or sitting at desks, while bodies and hands remain off the floor, away from dirt and germs. A mix of yoga postures, breath exercises, visualizations, mindfulness activities, creative movement, community-building games, and wellness and character-building discussion points such as the power of positive thinking, nutrition, and being a peacemaker, address the whole child – physical, social and emotional – making this the most unique and comprehensive program of its kind.

Yoga 4 Classrooms is easy for teachers and students to use, and helps to create a more harmonious, learning-friendly school day. And its benefits go well beyond the classroom. Yoga 4 Classrooms provides children with life skills they can use in and out of the classroom for long-term health and well-being. Absolutely anyone can use the Y4C program – teachers, students, parents, therapists – no yoga experience is required.

Yoga 4 Classrooms Teacher Workshops are being scheduled now. Teachers can attend a public seminar or bring the seminar to their school as a staff development workshop. Visit the website for more details.

The Power of Visual Imagery for Children

What do children enjoy the most in yoga class? 8 out of 10 of my students would say it's the visualizations we do at the end of nearly every class. In fact, I have many students come into yoga class and immediately ask for them. When I teach in schools, it's the same thing. "Are we going to go on an imagination vacation today, Miss Lisa?? Can we please?"

The use of visualization or creative imagery during relaxation can be quite powerful for kids. Many children find it difficult to quiet their sometimes very overactive minds. Using creative imagery can give these children something to focus on, easing their way to relaxation. In ChildLight Yoga classes, we help children to concentrate, focus and/or relax by guiding them through visual imagery exercises or stories. Children can also be guided to bring their awareness, or energy, to various parts of their bodies. This is the practice of yoga at its best – the unifying of body and mind!

But, when chosen and scripted with care, visualizations can do much more than help to quiet the mind. That is why we are thrilled to have discovered Dr. Charlotte Reznick in our online research! She has written a new book titled, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee, 2009, $14.95).

Here are some interesting quotes from other authors regarding this book and it's focus on giving children the gifts of visual imagery:

“Simple, practical, brilliant. What a wonderful world it will be when all families give their children the gifts presented in Dr. Reznick’s book. Joy, success . . . and health and happiness are just around the corner!” — Harvey Karp, MD, FAAP, creator of the book & DVD The Happiest Toddler on the Block

“Dr. Reznick offers a revolutionary approach for parents to help their children handle fears, worries, and self- doubt. Her simple, accessible advice allows kids to develop their self- esteem while creatively tackling problems. This book is a must- read for any parent who hopes to arm their child with the tools to handle life’s daily struggles.”— Jack Canfield, coauthor of The Success Principles™ and coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series

After reading the following article, I was very encouraged to note the direct ties to the many themes that are emphasized in both the ChildLight Yoga program (and teacher training) and to yoga philosophy in general. In fact, our Yoga for Classrooms program includes every one of the nine tools mentioned here as individual visualizations and specific techniques we use with our students to help them gain self-esteem, mind-body awareness, self-trust, and the ability to self-help and problem-solve. The concepts of having gratitude, imagining a 'special friend', power of the breath and others are incredibly powerful in their ability to help transform thought patterns, reduce anxiety and ultimately, create joy. Take a read...

NINE IMAGINATION TOOLS TO HELP CHILDREN COPE
By: Charlotte Reznick PhD
(Reprinted from Edmonton's Child online)

As a parent, you may not realize that your child possesses many of the answers to life's challenges—right in her own imagination. Through learning and practicing visualization, kids can develop emotional self-care skills to help themselves with a variety of everyday, practical concerns. These imagination tools can help your child:

• Love, accept, and appreciate himself.

· Reduce pain and heal other physical ailments.

• Overcome fears, such as fear of the unknown, abandonment, doctors, disasters, and dying.

• Deal with bedtime issues such as insomnia and bedwetting.

• Cope with death, divorce, and other losses.

• Handle anger, hurt, and frustration.

• Achieve success at school and in sports.

• Live peacefully with siblings and parents.


Here are nine imagination tools you can teach a child to help her deal with stressful times and navigate the challenges of growing up.

TOOL #1: Use the Balloon Breath

With her hands around her navel, have her breathe slowly and deeply into her lower belly so it presses into her hands like an inflating balloon. The balloon breath has calming effects and facilitates a waking state of focused concentration and receptivity to positive suggestions. Kids can use it to calm down before musical performances, soothe anger or hurt feelings, or wind down at night, for example.

Tool # 2: Discover A Special Place

This is a safe, special place within your child’s inner world where he can relax, regroup, or take mini-vacations from the stresses of life. It's a place to pose endless questions about life issues, and create numerous positive, possible solutions. Your child might visit his special place to find courage before taking a difficult test at school, or to get away from a bully's harsh words.

Tool # 3: CONSULT AN ANIMAL GUIDE

This is an imaginary guide—a kind, loving, and protective creature—that helps children tap into their wisdom. It's often safer and easier for animal friends to offer solutions to problems in creative ways, than expecting logic and linear thinking to do the work. Your child's animal guide can help her fall asleep, or practice patience at school in long, boring classes, or be brave before a trip to the doctor.

Tool # 4: Conjure up a Personal Wizard

Wizards come into play when animal friends "just won't do." His Personal Wizard is a mentor and magical teacher in human form who brings a different level of wisdom: human but extraordinary. A wizard can give advice, conjure up special powers such as math answers, and even cure troubling feelings like jealousy, anger, and grief.

Tool # 5: Receive Gifts

Gifts from imaginary helpers can be thoughts, objects, or ideas that symbolically provide children with exactly what she needs in the moment to help her. Gifts can be obvious or require further explanation by the animal friend or wizard. Sometimes gifts are hidden and need to be unwrapped or dug up. When a child goes to her special place and asks a wizard or animal friend for a gift containing the solution to her problem, she often finds the answer.

Tool # 6: Check in with Heart and Belly

This tool is comparable to suggestions of "listen to your heart" and "pay attention to your gut feelings." Children are encouraged to take a few minutes to "check in" with their heart and their belly, and to notice what messages are there for them. The heart and belly often have two different, but equally important, messages to relate.

Tool # 7: Talking to Toes and Other Body Parts

The body is a repository for lots of hidden information. With this tool, children discover where and how they stash different feelings in their body. Kids then find they can have a dialogue between emotions and/or symptoms to find answers to their concerns. For example, your child might discover that his stomach knows exactly why it hurts every day 30 minutes before school starts—it doesn't want Mom to leave, and it's afraid she won't come back.

Tool # 8: UsE Colour for Healing
Color is especially helpful in healing pain. Feelings and symptoms often have different colors associated with them. They can be unique to each individual and change over time. You can teach children how to imagine a color, such as ice blue or deep forest green, cooling down his hot fever. When a child imagines color inside or surrounding her body, it can be a remarkable tool for transforming pain, shifting emotions, and accessing healing energy.

TOOL #9: TAP INTO ENERGY

When words are insufficient, a loving touch from a parent can do wonders to restore calm and well-being. For example, you can help a child "pull the pain" out of his head by holding your hand about three inches from his forehead to give him a direction in which to send his pain—out and away.

You're now armed with nine simple, efficient, and totally free options to mix and match—depending on the situation and your child's favorite. When we teach our kids effective imagery techniques to solve their own problems, it can transform their world.

Charlotte Reznick is a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee, 2009, $14.95).

Back to School or Back to Stress?

by Lisa Flynn

It's almost back to school for many of our children - exciting for some and daunting for others. Families can easily become overwhelmed with thoughts of school supplies, getting the 'right' sneakers and backpack, packing nutritious lunches in the age of packaged snacks, getting to school on time, excelling on the soccer field, organizing carpools, and so on. It can be exhausting just thinking about it all...Imagine how our children must feel at times - especially when we, the parents, are the ones racing around with our heads spinning!

Most children are too young to understand what 'stress' is but, according to the experts, children today suffer from stress now more than ever. In addition to hectic lifestyles, they are bombarded with news of terrorism, war and violence, and a culture filled with time-saving (??) and educational (??) technological gadgets. Sometimes, it's just too much for young, developing minds and bodies to absorb. With little to no coping mechanisms, children often end up suffering chronic stress, which can then lead to all kinds of health issues. Stress can manifest itself in many ways in children: night terrors, acting out, hyperactivity, feigned (or real) illness, lethargy, fearfulness, eating issues, bed-wetting, etc.

What can we do as parents to ensure that our families stay calm and healthy? One suggestion would be to keep things simple and allow for downtime - limiting after-school activities, for example. Parents may opt to save time and energy during the ultra busy school/work-week by making freezable dinners ahead of time over the weekend. How about sorting, ironing and lining up school and work outfits for the week on Sunday afternoon? Are missing shoes and backpacks typically an issue during your household’s morning rush? A cubby organizer system may be a worthwhile addition to your entryway area. Try working together as a family to find opportunities to simplify and save time and energy. Inevitably, this will lead to more time for play, rest and rejuvenation during downtimes – wonderful antidotes to stress.

As health and wellness initiatives increase in importance throughout the school arena, school administrations and teachers are seeking ways to short-circuit tensions in the classroom as well. After all, schoolwork, testing and ever-changing standards are stressors for teachers and students alike. More and more, teachers are recognizing the benefits of and then utilizing relaxation techniques in an effort to short-circuit tensions and anxieties in the classroom. Conscious breathing exercises, visual imagery and yoga poses are reportedly not only proving fun for children, but by accounts, extremely beneficial as well. The idea of using ‘yoga tools’ in the classroom is the brainchild of Tara Guber and Leah Kalish, respectively Founder and Director, of Yoga Ed.™, an organization based in L.A. whose mission it is to bring yoga to today’s increasingly stressed schoolchildren. As highlighted in the September, 2007 issue of Yoga Journal Magazine, Yoga Ed.’s Kalish “believes yoga can teach physical health in an engaging way while providing emotional and psychological benefits.” For two years now, teachers at Central School in South Berwick, ME have been utilizing ChildLight Yoga's Yoga 4 Classrooms program to incorporate yoga tools into their class day. Other schools around the nation are following suit.

Whether it’s yoga and breathing exercises, improved time management, fewer after-school activities or packing school lunches the night before, there are many ‘small things’ that can be done to reduce stress during the hectic school year. Do you or your family have an idea you’d like to share about managing school time stress? Please contact us or post your comments here. Your thoughts may be included in a related future article.

For more information about bringing yoga into the classroom environment, please visit www.yoga4classrooms.com.

Yoga songs make kids yoga fun!

Singing is a staple in ChildLight Yoga classes for children. First, it's a great way to activate the breath as singing naturally forces fairly long inhales and exhales. Second, it FEELS SO GOOD to sing and chant! It’s a fun use of language and when combined with movement, it also works to improve coordination, concentration and balance. The benefits of music in general are overwhelming on so many levels – imparting calm, clarity and brain development. Singing as a group creates a feeling of community and connectedness. Finding yoga songs for children however, can prove to be a difficult task. We have some suggestions, but here first is a little shameless self-promotion:

Award-winning children's singer & songwriter, Sammie Haynes and ChildLight Yoga founder, Lisa Flynn (yours truly), recetnly teamed up to create a lovely little CD for use in children's yoga class and beyond. A mix of original songs and new lyrics to familiar melodies make this CD a special treat for children, parents, school teachers, and instructors alike.

Sing along with the songs while following the movement cues for a fun and effective way to utilize the breath, while building self-awareness through yoga-based activities. Timeless messages of peace, community and self-love will warm your heart.

Vocals and music by Sammie Haynes. Young yogi back-up singers include Brooke Flynn (7), Lilly Whelan (6), Sophia DeCristofaro (5) and Mia Erdman (5).

Songs are most appropriate for children ages 2 - 9 years and include:
• Hello There • Welcome Song • Breath by Breath • Warm-up Song • Butterfly Song • Listen, Listen • Walking, Walking • Alligator, Alligator • Big White Star • Row, Row, Row your Boat • Old MacYogi • Love in any Language • Yogi Has a Cat • Triangle Teapot • I Grow with Yoga • Little Fish • Go Do Yoga Rap Song • If I Were • Under One Sky • Goodbye for Now
Listen to song clips HERE.

$13
To learn more and to purchase I Grow With Yoga, CLICK HERE.
Wholesale pricing for studios, toy and educational stores are available - Contact us.

Other children's yoga CDs we love:
Dance for the Sun, by Kira Willey
Musical Yoga Adventures, by Suzy Frank and Linda Lara
Come Play Yoga!, by Karma Kids Yoga

Yoga makes its way into school programming

More and more schools are recognizing the benefits of yoga for children. Many are finding funding to bring programs (such as Yoga 4 Classrooms) into their schools.

See what this Brooklyn school is doing and what their Principal has to say about the benefits of the program: View article & Video News Clip from CBS Interactive Healthwatch Here.

A shout out to YogaDork.com for bringing this piece to our attention!

Yoga in the Classroom

by Lisa Flynn

A 2003 California State University study, and a growing number of subsequent studies, show a link between yoga and better learning, improved behaviors, and higher self-esteem. Students quickly learn to use yoga as a tool, not just to increase physical fitness, but also to manage their feelings and behaviors, and to create a mental state ready for learning and taking tests.

The following are some of the benefits of yoga and movement to maximize the learning process:

• Partner and group poses require students to work together as a team, creating positive social interaction.
• Balancing poses build focus and concentration.
• Some yoga exercises can help students relax, calming pre-test jitters.
• Other, more invigorating yoga techniques are useful for waking up sluggish minds before class or after lunch.
• Yoga offers children healthy ways to express their emotions, rather than bottling them up or striking out.
• Slow, even, “belly breaths” short-circuit the fight-or-flight response to stress, and promote a more relaxed, comfortable state – a perfect state for learning.
• A non-competitive yoga atmosphere where everyone can succeed fosters a can-do attitude, confidence, and enthusiasm.

More and more teachers and schools are recognizing the effectiveness of taking a few minutes here and there throughout the day to practice physical asanas, conscious breathing and relaxation/visual imagery exercises – right in the classroom. However, most teachers are not trained to do so and therefore may initially feel uncomfortable leading these exercises. That is where a trained instructor (you!) can become quite valuable.

Nearly any lesson plan you develop can be adapted for the classroom environment, though there are some challenges to consider.

There is limited space in a classroom. Most classrooms do not have a large open area in which to practice yoga. When developing a lesson plan, do keep this in mind.

• Most yoga poses and games will need to be practiced at or near one’s desk. Lying down on the floor may or may not be possible. Be creative in coming up with ways to utilize the desk or table and chair for modifications of poses typically done sitting or lying on the floor.

• Conscious breath exercises can be done sitting at a desk or table. Encourage students to sit upright with a long backs and necks, shoulders down away from the ears.

• Relaxation can practiced sitting in silence at a desk or with heads down on the desk. If space and cleanliness allow, students can lie on the floor with or without their legs up on their chairs. You might suggest that students bring in a towel on yoga days so that they can lie on the floor without concern.


Limited time. Before they realize how much it will actually help them in the long run, many teachers feel taking time out for yoga will be too time-consuming. After all, there is so much to be accomplished at school each day! Keeping this in mind, I often limit classroom yoga sessions to 20-30 minutes. Remind the classroom teacher that using the yoga-based activities need not take more than 5 minutes, if that is all the time he/she has available. In the end, any time spent on yoga is worthwhile – helping with transitions, test-taking, stress and overall learning-readiness.


Encourage the classroom teacher to participate in the yoga activities. Experiencing the beneficial effects of yoga first hand will help teachers to accept and even embrace it as a worthwhile part of the school day. As well, the more the teacher learns about and feels comfortable with the lessons, the more likely he will be to utilize them with his students when you are not there. You might even make it easy for teachers by typing up your lesson plans (with step-by-step instructions) to leave behind for their future use. They will love you for it!


Incorporate subjects of study. Find out the current areas of study and try and incorporate them into your lesson. For example, if you learn that the class is studying the American Revolution, you might devise a story about a soldier’s journey and incorporate it into your lesson plan. This might include marching in place (or around the room), Warrior Series, Triangle (Tent), Shavasana using a visualization about sleeping under the stars, and so forth. Ask the teacher if she has any other ideas for bringing the subject matter into the yoga lesson. She will appreciate that you asked and will enjoy helping you with this!

ChildLight Yoga’s own Yoga 4 Classrooms® Program offers a 5 hr. seminar for schools/teachers and yoga instructors seeking to bring yoga into the classroom setting. We are also working to publish the associated Yoga 4 Classrooms card deck. FMI, please visit www.yoga4classrooms.com.