Yoga & mindfulness

Lay your mat on the floor and sit opposite your child. Tell your child that you’ll be practising a special form of exercise that helps us feel calm and energised. 

Stretching exercises: start with your face! Crunch your lips and open them wide; puff your cheeks out and in; raise your eyebrows up and down. Stretch your neck: look up, down, side to side. Stand up and keep stretching the body, from the shoulders to the toes. Your child is going to enjoy this part as it is a relaxing process of yoga practice and we benefit from this without even noticing!

From here, you can find some on our website from our previous balancing pose activities. Then, extend their knowledge of yoga poses further with these stretches (which are some of our children’s favourites):

Dolphin 

Lie on your tummy, feet together, arms ahead.
Lift legs and arms up, as if stretching in bed.
Then look up with a smile, for all to see…
As you dive into the water, swimming free!

Tree 

Plant your two feet firmly on the ground
Lift one leg and bend it, as the other roots down.
Then choose a spot to look at – just the one
And feel your branches gently lift, warming in the sun.

As you move into these poses, you can sing our rhymes to make the stretches even more fun. To extend this activity even further, you and your child can make up your own yoga moves and give them funny names!