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You are here: Home / Archives for Videos

Videos

What Does It Take To Be a Kids Yoga Teacher?

What you need to be a Kids Yoga Teacher is kind of confusing because there are a lot of different levels of certification and training.

In this replay of the Monthly Mini-Training, you’ll get answers for many of the frequently asked questions about teaching kids yoga.

Watch the full replay and download the Guide to Becoming a Kids Yoga Teacher PDF, click here.

Here’s a transcript of the questions covered:

How do you divide the age groups for kids yoga classes?

I usually divide kids ages in the same as schools. Here in Canada, we have preschool, usually around walking, two, three, or four years old. We have junior and senior kindergarten who are four to six years old. Then we have junior school age, and senior school age.

In terms of partner poses, preschoolers don’t love partner poses.

Once you reach senior school age, they’re reading, and you can play games with them. You can do more puzzles, have them up, and teach them partner poses.

When you get into teen yoga, you’ll realize that teens like partner poses. You can have them teach the class as well with notice. That’s how I usually divide the age groups.

A group of 6 children and 2 teachers are standing with their arms over their head and leaning in to touch all their fingers to the centre to make a tent.  One person is smiling as they crawl into the tent.
School age children do a group/partner yoga pose creating a human tent!

What time is best a kids yoga class?

I’ve taught morning classes and afternoon classes. Afternoon classes are tricky if you are trying to teach younger ages because they nap.

I did teach an adult/tot class at 2:45 in the afternoon, right before pick up from school for our area. The adults and tots came, did the class, and then went and picked up their other kids. But sometimes, they would miss the beginning of class because of naps and a child sleeping late.

I suggest scheduling your class not too late at night. The latest I would go is a seven o’clock class or before dinner.

What is the maximum time you can teach a yoga class for kids?

The maximum time for kids yoga class depends on the age group. I find 30 minutes is a nice size class for the youngest age, like toddlers and preschoolers.

In the school age, juniors, and seniors, teens, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour can be excellent.

If I teach for an hour, I will bring in a storybook, a craft or colouring, or play a game for the last 15 minutes. All 60 minutes are not doing yoga poses, but we doing other mindful activities like all the ones covered in our teacher training.

Levels of Certification

There are quite a few people asking about registering with Yoga Alliance. Yoga Alliance is a voluntary registry. It’s not required that you register with them to teach.

However, if you’re looking at teaching yoga as a long-term business, you might consider registering as a Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher.

16 Hour Module

Most Kids Yoga Teacher Training gives a certificate of completion at the end of a course, regardless of the length of the training. Young Yoga Masters provides a certificate after each completed 16-hour module, so you can start teaching right away.

If you’re looking to finish the 96-Hours Kids Yoga Teacher Training, you can take the modules in any order.

95-Hour Kids Yoga Teacher Certificate

Yoga Alliance set 95 hours of specialty training in kids’ yoga as the standard for a Registered Children’s Yoga School (RCYS). An RCYS must follow specific training requirements and provide training in various categories to create a well-rounded training. Young Yoga Masters is a Yoga Alliance-registered children’s yoga school.

Yoga Alliance Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher (RCYT)

Yoga Alliance’s standard for Registered Children’s Yoga Teachers is:

  • 200 hours Adult Yoga Teacher Training plus
  • 95 Hour Children’s Yoga Teacher Training
  • then 30 hours of practical experience teaching children that you track on your own and add to the Yoga Alliance website

To learn more about the Level of Certification read here.

a group of kids yoga teachers holding their certificates
If you want to become a kids yoga teacher trainer, your students will want a Yoga Alliance Registered Training

Still have questions?

If you have any other questions about Kids Yoga Teacher Training and Certification, and as a kids yoga teacher, I’ve turned the comments on here so you can drop them in the comments.

If you are looking for a Kids Yoga Teacher Training, we hope all the ongoing support we offer at Young Yoga Masters will encourage you to choose our RCYS training.

Filed Under: Kids Yoga, Videos Tagged With: Kids Yoga, kids yoga teacher training

These Powerful Questions Work Really Well in Kids Yoga

This summer I decided to put away my phone, take a social media hiatus, and go on some self-paced retreats.  These have really helped me enter relaxation mode and it feels amazing.

Last month, we were lucky enough to book an Ontario Provincial Park campsite. The fire pit on this site faced a grove of trees that felt like a magical forest. 

I set up my camp chair to face this forest and it became my spot to sit, watch, listen, breathe, meditate.  I watched trees transformed by sunlight, observed mist weave through trunks and ground cover, and followed birds hunting and pecking for food.  

This Rose-breasted Grossbeak hopped right in front of me during tea time.

I spotted 3 kinds of woodpeckers (pileated, red bellied, flicker) and a grossbeak too!  Some of these birds stayed amongst the low branches, while others lived in the treetops, making only brief appearances. 

Every time I looked into this magical forest, I felt tension draining out of my entire being.

A few friends visited us and I watched them sit in my meditation spot looking at their phones. I tried joking about the world wide web made by the Daddy Long-leg spiders, and encouraged them to look for rare forest birds.  But for some, the pull of the phone was just too strong.

We struck up a lot of good conversations in front of that forest, getting to hear how everyone managed during the pandemic.  Each person had a unique story.

One dear friend expressed a difficulty reconnecting with others because it seemed as if people had lost their conversation skills and their curiosity about others. She felt this made it hard to keep a conversation going.  

Maybe people became accustomed to isolation?  The instant gratification of scrolling, doesn’t require much curiosity. Maybe the lack of questions comes from a fear of crossing a line and asking something too personal?

I contemplated my own curiosity on my retreat. What did I want to find out next? What did I want to explore?  

Connect with Kids by asking questions and listening to their answers to build trust in the class.

Encourage Self-Awareness and Confidence with Your Questions

Right now, there are places in the world where children are not allowed to question. Their curiosity is discouraged. I remembered my trip to the Himalayas where I saw young Tibetan monks debating each other on philosophy. Debating was part of the learning process.

I thought of my own experiences as a child and as a seeker, when questions were shrugged off with memorized answers, they weren’t really explored.

As I looked into the forest at a bird flitting from tree to tree, I thought about the value of curiosity for survival. 

How I hope children will question what I teach them. I want them to learn through their own experience and understanding. I want their questions to mean I’m doing my job well!!!

And I want to be able to question freely too, without fear of being shut out of the yoga community or any community for that matter.

I also contemplated how questions help me teach a kids yoga class.  

We had some wonderful family time during our time away and got to introduce our niece and nephew to camping. I love how curious children are when they explore nature and make new friends.

3 Questions to ask In Every Kids’ Yoga Class

There are 3 questions I ask in every single class in some form or another.  Not only do I ask these questions in every class, I probably ask them multiple times, in different ways. 

They are meant to help kids develop self-awareness, the habit of checking in with themselves and understanding themselves.

Here are my 3 questions.

Question 1: Is there anything you want to do to feel more comfort?

This question is the result of moving away from alignment-based teaching and towards functional and accessible movement.  When I first started teaching, we were taught that the placement of the feet, knees, and arms was paramount. 

Fortunately, I learned to shift and consider that each person has their own unique way to feel comfortable.  This question helps children take ownership of their practice.  It seems to help, one parents discovered her son practicing meditation in his bedroom because he was sad and wanted to feel better. Another child was found doing a yoga pose to help them concentrate while studying. The children learned to choose tools to feel better.

Warrior Pose Kids Yoga Teacher Certification Toronto Ontario Canada
During a Pose like Warrior Pose, check in with children and see how they can feel more comfort. They may switch arm or leg positions, or maybe even back up a bit, but when they are having fun, like in this practicum during the training, the kids usually want to be close!

What about you?  Is there anything you want to do to feel more comfort? Try taking a deep breath and asking yourself if there anything you can do to tend to your needs in this moment. Then make any adjustment you want.

Question 2: What is your breath like?

I also ask different questions about the breath in class as well.  Are you breathing or holding your breath? Is your breath relaxed?  Can you keep breathing smoothly? Can you hear your breath? What temperature is your breath? When children bring awareness to the breath, we are doing yoga, no matter what the pose looks like.

a kids yoga teacher points to her nose as she takes a deep breath in and 4 kids follow along doing yoga breathing
Breathe In the Big Me is a Breathing Routine that Helps Kids Pay Attention to the Breath

3. Do you want a rest? 

I ask this one after we’ve done a few yoga poses to help me pace the class. 

As you may know from your own yoga practice, sometimes you string a few yoga poses together, then there are times when you rest in easy pose or child’s pose before doing the next pose.  That’s what this question is about.  

Kids often have a lot of energy and they don’t want to rest at first, so we’ll put a few poses together.  Then after a while I’ll see their breath becoming more laboured, their arms hanging lower, or they come out of pose faster.  That’s when I ask, “Do you want a rest?” 

Sometimes everyone says no, sometimes yes, and sometimes there’s a mix.  If they want a rest, they’ll watch for a bit, those that don’t, can join in right away. 

The children learn that they can push themselves, knowing they can take a rest when they want to.  Near the end of class, as I hear more yes answers, I start to wrap up the class with a, “Two more poses to the big rest.” The children know I never skip the big rest, so they put what energy they have into the last part and then we’ll rest for a short or long song, again giving children the choice to rest or do a meditation to the music.

relaxation during kids yoga class and kids yoga teacher training
Help children learn to wind down and relax with songs and meditations. We cover a lot of these in the Themes and Dreams Kids Yoga Teacher Certification

I’ve found these 3 questions extremely useful as a kids’ yoga teacher and I’m curious if you’ve tried them and how they work for you.

Please leave a comment or questions here.

poster for the Monthly free kids yoga teacher check-in with the course date and time and a frog cartoon doing tree pose on the side of the poster
Join us for the FREE: Monthly Kids Yoga Teacher Check-In. Click on the image to get the zoom link or watch the replay.

Ask Me Anything Check-In

In the spirit of curiosity, our Monthly Check-In for new and experienced Kids Yoga Teachers for July 2021 will be an Ask Me Anything session.

Some good questions came into my inbox while I was away, questions about insurance, waivers, and finding new business after moving.  I’ll answer as many questions as I can and open up questions for your input, maybe even some debate.

In the small group breakout rooms, think of a question you’d like the other teachers you meet to answer. What would you like to find out about them in terms of kids’ yoga?

What will people want to know about you?

And a big shout out to all the teachers in these images from our Kids Yoga Teacher Training practicum classes. I hope to see you at the monthly check-in!!!

Try this One Minute Meditation to Breathe and Listen to the Forest is from the magical forest where I did my daily meditation.


Next month, I’ll be heading out for another self-paced retreat and hope to have more time to look into the forest and wonder. 

Filed Under: Co-Operation, Kids Yoga, Meditation with Children, Videos Tagged With: forest, kids yoga teacher training, questions

Halloween Scares: Social and Emotional Learning in Yoga for Children

Watch this Video on Kids Yoga Teacher Training for Halloween Yoga Ideas

Halloween is full of spooks and scares and gives kids yoga teachers a great opportunity for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).

Here’s a short video where I show you how you can play with SEL in your kids yoga classes.

 

Social and Emotional Learning for Preschool Children

One of my favourite activities in preschool yoga is play-acting emotions.  It’s so much fun to act out fear, sadness, excitement, greed, happiness, suspicion, and more with children in a yoga story.  With this age the story doesn’t have to be complicated, its simply exploring emotions in a playful way and helping children discover many ways to deal with the emotions.

One of the keys is letting kids connect to the concepts they already know from yoga class.

Instead of telling them to take a deep breath, ask them, “I’m scared!  What can I do?”

Let them tell you to take a deep breath. The lesson will sink in deeply when they make these connections for themselves over and over.

 

Kids Yoga Teacher Training

I use both SEL and stories in our kids yoga teacher training modules.  Not because kids are supposed to learn them, but because they are fun.  The learning is the added bonus that comes with a yoga and mindfulness practice.

a boy doing yoga on a pumpkin orange yoga mat
More Halloween Yoga Poses for Kids

Have a Happy Halloween filled with Kids Yoga!
Aruna

Lead Trainer of Young Yoga Masters
Yoga Alliance Registered Children’s Yoga Shool,

Filed Under: Kids Yoga, Lesson Plans, Videos Tagged With: Halloween Yoga, Kids Yoga, SEL

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

what happens at the kids yoga teacher summer certification webinar

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

free webinar about what happens at the kids yoga teacher summer certificationHere’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.

Filed Under: FAQ's, Kids Yoga, Videos Tagged With: kids yoga teacher training, webinar

Easy Breathing Activities for Kids Yoga

Children's Yoga Teacher Blows Bubbles and Kids try to pop them with their feet in the kids yoga teacher trainer certification

An Amazing Way to Get Kids’ Attention

It’s amazing how much use you can get out of a 99c bottle of dish detergent.

Picture a classroom full of young students, some eager to move and learn while others remain nervous or disinterested. A kids yoga teacher asks the kids to sit still and close their eyes, and when they are ready, the teacher reveals a bubble wand and soap.

The excitement is audible.

Students are directed to lie down beside each other, and the instructor blows bubbles above them encouraging them to pop as many as they can – with their feet. There isn’t an apathetic student in the room when they learn they’ll all get a try.

This method of getting kids engaged is shown towards the end of this video from the Young Yoga Masters Kids Yoga Teacher Certification:

While this simple prop introduction may sound insignificant, it promotes a safe and engaging environment while teaching incredibly relevant lessons. When kids pop bubbles by kicking the air, they get moving. More importantly, it prevents them from getting lost in the excitement, chasing after bubbles with minimal regard for their own safety, let alone that of the other kids.

Incorporating Bubbles into Kids Meditation

This activity is also a fantastic prompt for discussion. Think of the associations or lessons which could be learned by analyzing the use of bubbles:

  •  Blowing bubbles requires a relaxed and smooth breath which requires practice and patience.
  • Students may notice how delicate and short-lived the bubbles are. They are present for a brief time, and we appreciate them while they last rather than focusing on the loss. The fragile and temporary nature of bubbles is an easy connection to detachment and the idea of letting go. This makes for an excellent meditation prompt, as students can be encouraged to slow down their thoughts and imagine themselves dismissing a negative idea with each bursting bubble.
  • Students may also be encouraged to visualize themselves filling each bubble with a positive thought and letting these go, too. This is an important practice for avoiding fixation on things, and finding contentment.
  • The simplicity of bubbles permits nearly anyone to easily sketch them, and thought-bubbles or charts are an excellent way to visually keep track of discussion points and ideas.

The opportunities are truly endless.

“I remember teaching at a retreat and giving children a choice of activities, they chose the bubbles. We went outside and spent a half hour blowing bubbles, without any other activity necessary. The adults were in a three hour workshop and so for the last half hour of our time with the kids we blew bubbles. I considered it thirty minutes of deep breathing, and we all felt incredibly relaxed by the end. It was an added bonus that after this activity the children returned to their parents super calm.” 

– Aruna Kathy Humphrys, Lead Trainer, Young Yoga Masters

Nowadays, it is easy to forget that kids enjoy uncomplicated activities too, especially with the accessibility of video games and wide array of complex entertainment; simplicity can be refreshing.

Keeping kids safe and engaged can often be challenging for parents and teachers, yet it benefits all to stay creative with lesson plans and remember that even a small grocery store purchase can have an incredible impact.Young Yoga Masters Teacher Showing Kids Breathing Exercise

Share your fun kids yoga breathing activities in the comments section below.

Upcoming Events

Kids Yoga Teacher Training Yoga Alliance Registered Childrens Yoga School
Click this link for all the upcoming Kids Yoga Teacher Certification courses

Kids Yoga Teacher Training is always a welcome adventure you’ll be glad you explored!

Filed Under: Classroom Management, Inspiration, Kids Yoga, Lesson Plans, Meditation with Children, Videos, Yoga Games Tagged With: benefits, breathing, Kids Yoga, kids yoga teacher training, meditation for kids, Yoga Games

Special Contest – “Like” to Win

Special Update: This Contest is Closed

Congratulations to Frog Yoga Alphabet winner:  Julie G.

I’m a finalist in the Yoga Alliance Video Contest and I need your help to win!  So I want to spread the winning with a special contest.

yoga for children - bow pose
B- Bow Pose from the Frog Yoga Alphabet

Help me get more “likes” on my Video entry and not only will you have a chance to win a Frog Yoga Alphabet Digital Teacher Training package, you’ll also help bring Young Yoga Masters one step closer to California (ooh that sounds like fun!).  If you haven’t seen the Frog Yoga Alphabet Teacher Training Package, it gives you the electronic files for 26 colour yoga posters and colouring pages to print as often as you like, PLUS tons of games to play with your children (Prize Value:  $39).

Here’s how the contest works:

  1. “Like” on You Tube:  to enter this special contest watch the Transformation Through Yoga – Young Yoga Masters video (it’s under 3 minutes) and if you like the video,  press the “Like” button  on You Tube (note: you must sign into Google or You Tube to “like” a video there – sign up is free)
  2. Leave a Comment that you “Liked” Here:  make sure you come back to this post and leave me a comment to tell me something you liked about the video.  This way I’ll have all the contest entries in one place.
  3. Get Your Friends to “Like” for Additional Entries:  Ask your friends or other lovers of Children’s Yoga  to “like” the video on You Tube then leave a comment here for each friend you get to “like” the video for additional entries (both you and your friend can comment to enter).

The contest will close at 11:59 pm on September 13, 2012 and one random winner chosen from the comments on this blog post will receive the Frog Yoga Alphabet Digital Training Package!

Remember:  You Tube is the only place where “Like” matters for this contest.  Here’s the You Tube Video link:

the transformation of teaching kids yoga
"Like" this Video on You Tube to enter.

You Tube link:  http://youtu.be/vTzrLQNcVWM

Yoga Alliance has written me:  Please continue to share your video with your network as the number of likes will factor into the ultimate decision. “Likes” help and I also think the video will help more people see the benefits of bringing yoga to children.  It’s got three true stories of transformation from children.  And Likes will help give you an entry to win a Frog Yoga Alphabet Digital Teacher Training Package.

Now, you can get started by watching the video at this link.

Thank you for your help!  Good luck to everyone in the contest.

 

Filed Under: Kids Yoga, Videos Tagged With: contest

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