Kids Yoga

New Webinar: What Happens at the Kids Yoga Teacher Summer Certification?

You’re about 45 days away from the 12 Day Summer Certification with Young Yoga Masters. Questions have been coming in about how the program works, which prompted our next free webinar: What Happens at the Summer Certification

During this FREE Webinar you’ll get an inside look into the upcoming Kids Yoga Teacher 12 Day Summer Certification.

Our goal is to help you find out if this is the right training for you now and for your future as a kids yoga teacher!

What Happens at the Summer Certification

Here’s what we will discuss in the webinar:

why it’s tougher to choose a training now, more than ever before and what you can do to choose the right one for your goals.
the options and courses you can take at the Summer Certification,
lots of pictures from the Summer Certification at the Art Gallery of Burlington
the experience you will get when we teach 50 + children from 3 – 13 years old in the practicum
what resources you will leave with and what your manuals look like,
and how you will be able to use your training to put yourself out there as a kids yoga and mindfulness teacher after the training is over.

graduates of the best kids yoga teacher certification in Ontario — Way to Go Graduates of the Burlington Summer Certification! What a wonderful, compassionate group, so caring and kind.

Kids yoga teacher training opens doors for you to do meaningful work that you care about. Find out how teaching yoga has changed our graduates lives!

If you are considering attending the Summer Certification, but not quite sure if it is right for your, don’t miss this free webinar.

The Summer Certification starts on July 14, so now is the time to find out what its all about and if it is right for your goals.

A Mindful Mother’s Day with ideas for Children and Parents

With Mother’s Day nearing, here are 3 quick tools to make your day special.

1. Free Printable Mothers Day Kids Yoga Tool

It made me so very happy to see this post on Instagram of our Free Mother’s Day Acrostic Poem Printable. You can get it here as well as a lesson plan for a Mother/Child yoga class!

Thanks to theHappyLotus for tagging me. It is well worth it to follow theHappyLotus for kids yoga inspiration. And while you are there, feel free to follow Young Yoga Masters on Instagram too!

[button text=”Get the Free Mother’s Day Printable Here” title=”Simple Button” url=”https://youngyogamasters.com/2015/05/08/free-mothers-day-yoga-printable-and-new-courses/” style=”light” align=”center” target=”_self”]

2. Mindfulness for Mothers – Techniques for When you Lose your Cool

Whether you have a mother or you have kids, somehow families can push your buttons at times!

This video will give you a head start on keeping your cool and help you NOT explode at a family get together.

3. Mindfulness for Children

A short video from our last teacher training weekend! I’m so proud of our graduates for an amazing practicum class with the children. I recommend a circle of kindness for Mother’s Day where you talk about how to be kind to others and how to be kind to yourself as well. Kids know what to do! Watch and see:

Whether you are celebrating with family, remembering a loved one, or creating your own way to nurture yourself,

Have a beautiful Mother’s Day.

Lesson Plan for Kids Yoga at a Festival

Cyndi from Young Yogis Toronto is on the stage teaching a Warrior Sequence in the Kids Yoga Class

Our 30 Minute Kids Yoga Lesson Plan

Last weekend was the 6th year I’ve rented a booth at the Toronto Yoga Show. This is one of the few trade shows I participate in each year. It’s a good one for our business because it is busy and it is geared to Yoga.

We promote our Kids Yoga Teacher Training, the 12 Day Immersion and sell a few kids yoga products that are easy to use and explain.

Plus we get to showcase our Kids Yoga in the Yoga Garden for a 30 minute Class.

Objectives for the 30 min Kids Yoga Class

If you ever get the opportunity to teach a demo class at a conference or festival I hope you take the opportunity. I have taught this class for a few years now and it has helped build my confidence teaching larger groups.

The key is to come prepared. For this class I had 3 main objectives:

Engage everyone in the class: Go with your favourite poses to teach and ones that you know people like! I chose:
– a warm up song and breathing activity
– 2 partner poses,
– and a relaxation
In past years we invited children onto the stage, and some kids come back because they really like this part. So we divided our class into a warm up with kids on stage and then partner poses after they return to their families.
Promote some products at the booth: our second objective was to showcase our resources in action. This year we featured the Breathing Ball and an audio from Meditations for Growing Minds at the end. Then we gave out Yoga Stickers to the kids who participated.
Promote the Kids Yoga Teacher Training: 3 grads of our training volunteered to teach the class. This gave them a unique opportunity to teach a large group and also let me brag about how wonderful and confident our grads are at teaching!

Partner Boat Pose with Maggie teaching and Cyndi assisting.

The Lesson Plan

We chose the theme Intuition for our class and how yoga can help you get to know your inner teacher to figure out what to do when you are not sure. Here was what we planned for our 30 minutes:

3 min: Aruna Welcomes and Introduce our high quality Kids Yoga Teacher Training and the Grads,
8 min: Marcia leads a Warm Up using the Weaving song by Wah! from the Child’s Play album and does some yoga breathing using the Breathing Ball,
7 min: Maggie leads partner boat pose. leaning back on hands, then joining hands, and singing row, row, row your boat,
7 min: Cyndi leads a Warrior 1, 2, and 3 sequence on each side and Warrior 3 touching hands with partner singing a song with the poses,
5 min: Aruna plays the “Castle of Clouds” track from Nicole’s Meditations for Growing Minds Album (3 min). Then thanks everyone for attending and invites people to come get our literature and talk to us at the booth.

What Actually Happened

If you’ve taught kids yoga classes, you probably know that 30 minutes can fly by! Our plan felt good and we all knew to try to stick within our allotted time. We were ready.

But the classes before us was not.

Somewhere, someone, somehow, went over time on their class. The time snowballed and we didn’t get to take the stage until 10 minutes into our allotted time.

Then we were on our own to figure out the mic equipment.

It wasn’t until 5 minutes into the class that I found the volume on the mic so people could hear the teacher.

After losing 10 of 30 minutes to the class before us, Marcia has invited the children on stage and getting ready to start the warm up song.

So each of our teachers ended up losing almost half their time. Yet everyone handled it so gracefully. They cut back on their activities rather than trying to squish everything in and we had a jolly good time with the families.

We only went over 5 minutes.

Fortunately the teacher after us was so very gracious about it.

Lessons Learned from the 2019 Show

What are my 3 take-aways from the 2019 Festival Class?

Support your local festivals and they will support you back. I’ve been part of this yoga show since its inception. Six years ago I took the plunge with registered for a booth for the Kids Yoga Teacher Training. Doing local festivals is a great way to get to know your community.
Prepare for loose timing and fun: Starting and finishing classes on time is a challenge in studio and festivals alike. Be ready to change your lesson plan on the fly and figure out equipment on your own. But most important, have a good time!
Surround Yourself with Talented People: At the show, someone asked me how I have manged to have a yoga business for 20 years. One big part is that I surround myself with people who are smart and talented. I stopped trying to do it all myself. I could teach a 30 minute class on my own but seeing our grads get this opportunity I felt so proud of their confidence, talent, and grace to go with the flow.

No matter what your lesson plan, when you bring your heart and soul to the event you are in for wonderful results.

Festival are an important step to creating a strong supportive community.

Our Lesson Plan has 4 grads of the training leading the class (one remotely – see their details and Nicole’s audio below)

Special Thanks to Teachers:

Maggie of Yoga with Maggie Toronto
Cyndi of Young Yogis Toronto
Nicole of New Age Teacher (TM) (Meditations for Growing Minds creator)
Marcia of Yogi Frogz Kids
(not shown) Claire of Ambassador Yoga Fast Track Program for Yoga Teachers to offer Teacher Training

How to Become A Kids Yoga Teacher Free Video Training Webinar

We had wonderful participation in the free webinar video training over the weekend.

I want to thank everyone for your great questions and feedback. We met, we talked, we learned a lot about becoming a kids yoga teacher. I appreciate all the questions sent in to make the webinar so informative and interesting.

Here are just a few questions that were answered:

What does it take to become a kids yoga teacher?
What is different about the 95 Hour Training compared to the 25 hour training I took?
How do you make the kids pay attention?
If you could have only 3 props in your kids class, what would they be?

We covered so many subjects for those new to kids yoga and for teachers looking for fresh ideas.

In addition to these questions, we answered a whole bunch of important questions by participants. For all those who want to know the ins and outs of getting trained as a kids yoga teacher, this is an excellent resource. If you weren’t able to attend the webinar live, the recording is below along with all the links mentioned in the webinar.

[divider]

Kids Yoga Teacher Training Resources Links

During the webinar I talked about some wonderful resources so here is a list of them:

July 14 – 26, 2019

Summer Certification in Burlington, Ontario
Come get your 95 Hour Certificate (or as many modules as you want to attend) by the shores of Lake Ontario this summer.
Summer Certification Details and Registration Costs Here

March 29-31
Toronto Yoga Show – Free Tickets to Show
Visit A Children’s Yoga Network Booth 526 at The Toronto Yoga Show
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Get Free Tickets to the Show on our Facebook Page

April 14-16
Kundalini Yoga Spring Getaway – An Amazing Yoga Weekend for Adults
Immerse yourself in a weekend to enhance your personal practice and see what a difference it makes in your teaching!
Register for the Spring Getaway Here

Getting Clear on Your Kids Yoga Niche

Life is known for its surprises and December was no exception. That month I treated myself to the Kundalini Yoga Winter Solstice Sadhana in Florida for lots of yoga, meditation, and healthy eating before the cookie trays and gravy boats of Christmas. Florida started with lots of sunshine and good yoga then turned into a tornado zone. Mid way through the week I abandoned my flooded tent for a cozy warm hotel room, hot bath, movies on TV, and take-out Chinese food.

Even though it wasn’t what I expected it was what I needed. I released a lot of guilty feelings for taking care of myself.

You see, I did feel a little bad for not getting work done, then for not being at camp during the tornado warnings, but when I returned to camp the next day I was rested and ready to go. All around me people were yawning, coughing and sniffling from all the rain. They were so happy I had energy to give the kids in the Youth Camp. They immediately transferred me from crafts to a whole day with the 3-4 year olds.

With the sun shining again and our mindful supervision, the kids played all day and I’m happy to report it ended very well for all.

Plus when I got home I had more energy for my family and now for work.

I know there will be more to write about this experience later, for now you can follow my Instagram feed for videos and pics from that trip.

Creating a Business Vision and Intention

Now that 2019 is here I’m back to planning for the year ahead. If you’ve ever wondered what mindful planning looks like, I’ll tell you my process now.

Visioning is part of my meditative practice. Consciously choosing a direction is my practice, just like choosing a yoga practice, I choose a life practice! Setting my vision means I don’t get pulled in different directions by what other people are doing ending up in a rut, trying to keep up, or forgetting what I was intending to do.

I’ve written about goal setting on my blog in 2018, offered a free visioning workbook in 2017, and shared a story about setting intentions here. Reviewing, planning, and intention setting is my ritual at the new year. It is a ritual that contributes to my business growth.

Here’s something you may not know about my early planning experiences.

My Ambitious First Business Plan

When I first started teaching yoga I thought kids yoga would be a side gig for me. I wrote my first business plan in 1999, which was to teach yoga classes and provide students with healthy meals. It was a yoga and meal service for people who wanted to be healthy. There was not much about kids yoga in it at all. I had no clue that my side hustle would become my main focus.

Sometimes when you are starting a business you don’t know what parts will take off. However, that ambitious first business plan was part of the process that brought me to where I am now.

It also taught me an important lesson: your vision must grow and change with your experience!

As I learned that shopping, prepping, cooking, packaging meals, doing dishes, delivering food was not for me, I noticed my energy for kids yoga growing. I made the decision to pivot in a new direction.

tree pose with kids yoga teacher trainer Aruna Kathy Humphrys — This is one of the earliest pictures I have of me teaching kids yoga (maybe in 2002?). My two nephews and niece are 23, 21, and 19 now!

Before I started offering Teacher Training, my niche was teaching children in daycare centres, after school programs, and community centres. I didn’t like teaching private clients. I didn’t like teaching in yoga studios. My niche was going where the kids already were, getting hired by those places, and staying there for as many years as they would have me. I taught in one school for 18 years!

The niche of kids yoga eventually grew into kids yoga teacher training.

A Niche Helps You Stop Chasing Shiny Objects

Now let’s fast forward to my process in the present day. With a focus on training new kids yoga teachers lately I’ve been getting emails asking for online training. The technology is there for this to be possible.

But the timing is not right and its not sitting right with me. This time of taking stock of what I offer lets me clearly see if I can start anything new.

yoga teacher vision board business planning — Reviewing my Yoga Business Vision Board from 2018

Review and Revise Your Past Goals

My first step to my new year planning is looking back on my plans for the previous year. Here’s what I wanted to do in 2018:

Re-Write 95 Hour and offer Kids Yoga Teacher Training: updating my Kids Yoga Teacher Training was a long-overdue task and like most projects, it took much longer than I planned! I’m happy to say it is completed and I love the new training! So this part can be checked off and will open up time for other goals like getting a regular newsletter and blog going again.

Kids Yoga teacher summer immersion training in Ontario Canada — The dates are set for the Summer Certification Intensive and registration is open!

Promote Ambassador: My goal of 12 new Ambassador Fast-Track Trainer Program fell short, but I did get to 5. Helping experienced yoga teachers run their own 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training is still very exciting to me and will definitely stay on my goal list. I’d love to see qualified kids yoga teachers make their teen program a 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training. That would really get teens committed to their practice! If you’re curious about this, take a look here.

Leadership in Training: Another work in process is bringing new trainers into the Young Yoga Masters kids yoga teacher training. It is slowly moving forward and I’m learning more about what I need to know. For instance I know that unlike the Ambassador Fast-Track, I will only draw trainers from graduates of the 95 Hour Training. Again, definitely something I want to continue to focus on.

It’s clear from reviewing my past year that my plate is already quite full!

I’ve made a choice not to do any new projects, so no online courses, no books, or no shiny new projects that cross my path. In fact, I’ve started naming these (often out loud) as “shiny object” to help me stay focused.

A Niche Helps You Find the Right Client

Contemplating my niche is helping me see that there are niches within niches. For instance you may think that begin a Kids Yoga Teacher trainer is a niche. However after doing this for over 10 years now, I see the niches within kids yoga teacher training.

I am drawn to work with those who want to earn the full 95 Hour kids yoga training rather than those who want to take one weekend course and be done with their training. I enjoy seeing people progress through all the elements of the full training. I prefer the longer term relationships with students where I get to know people and find out why they want to teach kids yoga and the best ways to support them. I feel so proud when I give someone their 95 Hour Certificate because I’ve seen the commitment and sacrifices it took them to get to the full training.

I’m not exactly sure how, but I will be focusing more on supporting those getting the complete 95 Hour Certification.

A Niche Helps You Find Peace of Mind

Finally, if I didn’t take time to ponder my niche, I would not have hopped on that plane to Florida in December. Why? Because I would have been drawn to start some new project, spreading myself thin and putting my own practice on the back burner (again).

Knowing I have a plan and a focus is comforting for me. It gives me peace of mind that I wouldn’t get if I was trying to do everything. This year my planning routine led me to create my own custom calendar through Vistaprint.

I use the calendar to track my bookings and the top to track my ideas and other important ideas.

Here’s a picture:

Do You Know Your Kids Yoga Niche Yet?

The more I vision, the more I’m drawn to explore the importance of a niche to explore you are going to do, and also what you are NOT going to do.

Narrowing down your niche may seem counter intuitive when you first start off because it may feel like you are turning people away. You want to do it all to get your business going as fast as possible. When you first start out you may not know what your niche will become. At least it was that way for me.

Plus if you are reading this blog, you probably feel like you have a niche: Kids Yoga.

But consider the time when you could call yourself a yoga teacher, now you need to clarify that you’re a Hatha Teacher, Kundalini Teacher, or a Restorative Teacher.

The same clarification needs to happen in kids yoga.

Do you specialize in a certain age group?
Do you teach playful classes or more serious and meditative classes?
Do you work with sports teams, children on the autism spectrum, classroom yoga, or preschool yoga?
Do you do private classes, schools, or yoga studios?

Whatever you choose, look for what you love to do, because when you choose it as your niche, you’ll be doing it a lot as you become an expert.

The more you are an expert, the more you will be sought after.

That specialization will be good for the kids, for your business, and for your peace of mind too!

Can you Explain your Niche?

How would you identify your niche to a new client?

Leave a comment with your “elevator pitch” of your niche. Then read others to comment on and offer feedback.

How clear the niche is coming across to you?

I will also read each comment and offer feedback!

Social Emotional Learning and Teaching Chakras to Children as Emotional Anatomy

Last weekend I was in Washington, DC speaking at the National Kids Yoga Conference about the importance of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and how teachers can use meaningful stories in their kids yoga classes to teach emotional skills.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has established itself as an important paradigm in all educational fields and I’m happy to report that it is an important part of Young Yoga Masters Kids Yoga Teacher Training.

We integrate the ideas of SEL into all Certificates but it’s a core part of the Chakras for Children module.

Aruna Kathy Humphrys teaching Social Emotional Learning Workshop at National Kids Yoga Conference

What is Social Emotional Learning?

For decades teachers and schools focused on teaching knowledge and information gathering skills. The names of class topics refer to well-known areas of human knowledge: math, science, history, geography and so on. They thought that you would learn emotional and social skills a by-product of learning these other topics.

By struggling to understand difficult concepts and getting together in groups to do projects students were thought to have learnt emotional and social skills. Social and emotional learning was never considered a topic unto itself.

In recent years a new paradigm of teaching has put emotional and social skills at the forefront of learning instead of leaving it as a by-product of academic skills. This new paradigm is called Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and it has been making headway in school curricula and in scientific research.

Research Reveals Social Emotional Learning Works!

Social Emotional Learning is the process by which children (and adults) acquire the skills to manage emotions, create positive relationships and achieve desirable goals.

A review of 82 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs involving 97,406 kindergarten to high school students found SEL training had long lasting, valuable results:

Students who were enrolled in school based SEL programs experienced positive benefits for almost 4 years after going through a SEL program
Positive attitudes, prosocial behavior, and academic performance improved
SEL training protected against the development of subsequent problems (i.e., conduct problems, emotional distress, and drug use)
Positive effects were found with students from different racial groups, different socioeconomic statuses, and different geographic areas around the world.
SEL programs improved children’s academic performance and behavior
One of the foundational elements of social emotional learning is self-awareness.

Using Chakras to Teach Social Emotional Learning

Children see skeletons of the body to learn about their bones. They see the organs in their body and learn about their digestive system. But where is the map for children to learn about their emotions? The study of the Chakras can provide this map.

Teaching the Chakras to children is a fun, playful endeavour to explore colours, feelings, and emotions. Chakras are a way to look at your emotional anatomy. The Chakras are a wonderful way for kids to learn about their emotions in their body and to empower them to self-regulate and cope with stress.

This is why SEL can be enhanced by learning about the Chakras. Chakras emphasize energetic anatomy, beyond parts of the body, towards understanding how we feel and the emotions related to the energetic anatomy of each chakra.

Using the Chakras to examine our social emotional identities yields a deep understanding of the layers of our emotions that co-exist and impact our relationships with ourselves and others.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Social Emotional Learning and also learning lots of great tools, techniques and games for teaching Family Yoga and Kids Yoga classes, consider signing up for the 95 Hour Kids Yoga Teacher Certification. You can find out more about the Chakras for Children 4 Hour Module here or the whole Certification here.