Early years activity: Yoga and Me
Yoga can be a fun and playful way for young children to explore movement and discover what their bodies can do. Simple poses and movements encourage children to stretch, reach, bend, balance and hold different positions, helping to develop core strength, stability, balance, co-ordination and body awareness. During our yoga and me activity, children can become tall trees, fluttering butterflies, stretching cats or slithering snakes while developing increasing control and confidence in their movements.
Yoga and Me learning aims
- Develop gross motor skills, core strength and stability
- Practise balance and co-ordination
- Become increasingly aware of their bodies and how they move
- Experiment with controlling and changing their movements.
Resources you'll need for this activity
- A clear, safe space where children can move freely
- Calm music
- Pictures of simple yoga poses – optional
Yoga and Me activity outline
Start by waking up your bodies
- Begin with some gentle movements together such as reaching your hands high above your head, stretching out wide, touching your toes, rolling your shoulders and gently shaking your arms and legs.
Introduce some playful yoga poses
- Show the children a few simple movements and encourage them to have a go. Keep it fun – there is no need for a 'perfect' yoga pose
- Tree – stand tall and stretch your arms up like branches. Children who are confident can experiment with lifting one foot
- Butterfly – sit down, bring the soles of your feet together and gently move your knees up and down like butterfly wings
- Cat – move onto hands and knees and gently round and straighten your back
- Dog – place hands and feet on the floor and lift your bottom into the air
- Snake – lie on your tummy and gently lift your head and upper body to look around like a snake.
- Encourage children to think of their own poses and movements - follow the children's ideas. They might become lions, frogs, stars, aeroplanes or dinosaurs
- Bring the activity to an end by sitting or lying comfortably. Encourage children to notice their breathing
- Take slow breaths together before finishing with one final big stretch.
How to extend this activity
- Once children are familiar with some movements, turn them into an imaginative movement story. You could go on an adventure together encourage the children to decide where the adventure goes and what you meet along the way. Can they invent a yoga pose to represent it?
NDNA products to support you with this activity
Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.
