To bring yoga to children you need age appropriate games and activities to keep kids’ engaged. To help you along, we have some wonderful free activities to use with our free Yoga Alphabet poster.

These 3 activities are ones I use over and over. They’ll bring the yoga alphabet to life with the children and youth that you teach, no matter what their age.

The Alphabet makes Kids’ Yoga Fun and Helpful

The alphabet is such a huge part of kids’ lives. They’re learning it, printing it, spelling with it, and eventually writing stories, essays, and reports, all from 26 letters! It’s no surprise that you need a Yoga Alphabet asap.

This yoga alphabet gave me a way to remember students’ names and more. It’s so versatile, there are over 40 activities in the Yoga Literacy certificate!

3 Really Useful Yoga Alphabet Activities

Here are my 3 favourite ways to use the Yoga Alphabet. They’re tops because they get kids moving AND they help in other ways. They’re really useful.

1. Learn Names: Do the yoga pose for the first letter of each person’s name to learn who’s in your class.
2. Study Aid: For a test, do all the letters and poses of a tricky word to give kids some stress relief when studying and another way to remember the spelling.
3. Birthday Celebrations: On a birthday, pay tribute by doing all the letters of the birthday kid’s name. More ideas below.

Learn Kid’s Names with the Yoga Alphabet

At one time I was teaching 25 kids’ yoga classes a week. That’s a lot of names to learn! Names takes me a while to remember, I wish I was one of those people who could remember instantly, but that’s just not the way my mind operates.

The Yoga Alphabet played a vital role in helping me remember names. It’s more professional for a teacher to know children’s names rather than saying: “Hey you, in the red striped shirt…”

When you’re going to a classroom every week for the whole year, it is really professional if you can learn the kids names.

Name Games with the Yoga Alphabet

It can take weeks, sometimes months, but you can learn names with help.

• Ask teachers to say children’s names as much as possible and even ask kids to say each other’s names when we take turns.

• Help yourself learn by adding a lot of name games in your lesson plans.

• Kids can help you by saying their name, doing their Alphabet Yoga letter, and adding something else that starts with their first letter. For example, Avnoor is Alive and picking Apples. Benjamin does Bow pose and looks like a Basketball.

Repetition and activities like these help! Hello Avnoor (me remembering Avnoor doing the Alive Apple move) and hello Benjamin (remembering basketball Benjamin : )

Study Aid

No matter how old you are, studying for a test can create tension. What helps more than a movement break? This activity gives youth a break and can even make studying feel more fun.

Take one of the words on the test, make it a tricky one.

Then step away from your desk and move as you spell the word with the alphabet poses. Do all the letters and poses for that tricky word and see how you feel after.

Moving helps relieve tension and clears the mind. Plus when kids use the alphabet frequently they remember the letters. During the test they remember doing A- Alive and not E – Elephant. Presto, you can remember that tricky word is spelled with an A in it.

Birthday Celebrations with the Yoga Alphabet

When you teach a lot of kids it seems like there’s always a birthday. Our Frog Yoga Alphabet makes it easy to acknowledge a child’s special day by doing each letter of the child’s name. This activity can fill a 30 minute class with:

• a warm-up,
• Yoga poses for each letter of the name, plus add activities like partner poses or stories for each letter/pose (if their name is short like “Ed” do their last name or middle name too)
• blowing out imaginary candles for a pranayama,
• and relaxation.

If you’re not sure what these activities look like, get the Yoga Literacy Certificate and you’ll be well prepared.

Best of all you can celebrate in class without sugary cupcakes and still pay tribute to a child’s special day.

Offer Premium Birthday Packages

I offered birthday party packages in my business, I had a premium package that included yoga names for each child (see the example with LAUREN pictured above). We did all the letters/poses for the birthday kid’s name. Then we made banners and each person got to take home their yoga name as a party favour.

We cover Birthday Parties in the Yoga Literacy training too, plus you get the PDFs to print out all the letters you want.

Get More Ideas AND a Kids Yoga Teacher Certificate

I hope these resources and ideas help you get started with the Yoga Alphabet. If you want to get a Certificate to add to your Kids Yoga Teaching resume as well as really useful printable resources, I recommend the Yoga Literacy Certification. These are tools you will use over and over again.

This certificate also counts towards our 96 Hour training with Young Yoga Masters, Registered Children’s Yoga School at Yoga Alliance.

We’d love to see you using the Yoga Alphabet to help kids in all these ways and more. It’s really useful and really rewarding for children and for you!