~Turkey Yoga~

Yoga for kids is one of my most favorite activities to do with my girls. They love it! Rita's kindergarten teacher thinks it's good for the kids too and incorporates it into the curriculum twice a month. Last week I was lucky enough to get to actually teach the class. There is a kid yoga teacher training in January and I just may get some hours training in that specialized area! Here's a wonderful way to kick off the Thanksgiving festivities with your kids....

~Turkey Yoga for Kids~

~Start in mountain pose with your eyes closed



~Take a deep breath in through your nose and imagine all of the delicious food smells we associate with Thanksgiving

~Imagine Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Cranberries, and Apple or Pumpkin Pie or any other foods your family will enjoy. Taking deep breaths in between naming different foods.

Next we will go through movements for each of the foods listed above...

~Turkey Strut: however you want moving around the room. With a big group we formed a circle and flapping our wings and strutting our stuff all around saying

"Gobble Gobble Gobble"



~Mashed Potato: a famous dance move from the 50's like a combo of the twist but moving one foot in front and back


~Green Beans or Peas: Gotta get our veggies in! First we harvest our veggies by planting seeds and by raining down on them and giving them plenty of sunshine. For Green Beans we stand as straight as we can and jump up and down. For Peas we get in a tight ball and roll on to our backs while holding our knees in tight


SUN


RAIN




GREEN BEANS & PEAS



~PIE! We stand in Mountain again and look the the left then right and then up and look for an apple tree. Tree Pose and we grow our branches and then sway to the right and left. Then we put our arms in front and make a big circle for our basket and we either reach up high on our tippy toes for the apples or we squat low for the pumpkins. We then stretch our arms and do a back bend while we dump our fruit out and then fill and dump again several times.



TREE


BASKET


PICK FRUIT


DUMP FRUIT

~Finally our basket is so full we can't pick it up so from a squatting position we fall back and grab our feet for happy baby pose.





~Close our eyes for the finally resting talking about all the great food we put into our bodies to make us strong and healthy!