Our First Class

After a great deal of time, thought, and planning for Mind, Move, Make our first class finally happened!

 

To open the class we had a discussion about gratitude; the children shared their ideas of what gratitude means to them.  All the students got to name one thing in their lives for which they are grateful.  They shared that they are thankful for people and pets instead of naming physical possessions as the most important things in their lives.

This is my singing bowl!  The students are excited to learn how to play it.

After the discussion I asked all the students to lay on their yoga mats with one hand on their heart and one hand on their stomach giving them a chance to relax and decompress after a long day at school.  After ringing the singing bowl, a bell-like musical instrument, I asked the children to count their breaths until they could no longer hear the sound of the bowl ringing.  This allowed them to get in touch with their breath and focus their listening skills on one sound.  When they couldn’t hear the bell anymore I asked them to show me that the sound was gone with the action of silently switching the hand on their heart to their stomach and vice versa.  Then they shared the number of breaths they counted before the sound disappeared.

Next, the students found a comfortable seat on their yoga mats.  I asked them to close their eyes and open their hands because I had a gift for them.  “I think she’s going to give us cookies!” one student said enthusiastically.  When all the students were seated, calm, and ready I gave each one a small, smooth stone.  

They were instructed to explore the object with their eyes closed and use their other senses to figure out what it was while keeping the secret to themselves if they figured it out.  I was happy to watch the children using touch and smell to solve the Mystery of the Unknown Object.  One student even decided to taste his rock, which made me smile and chuckle quietly to myself; I was thankful that I washed the rocks beforehand!   

Each student used his or her rock as a point of visual focus, or drishti, during our movement practice.  The children placed the rocks at the top of their yoga mats and I talked them into tree pose.  Having a point of visual focus is helpful in maintaining balance and concentration.  Several of the students still found this posture difficult, but I imagine by the end of our eleven classes together they will all master the pose!

After moving through a few sun salutations and exploring downward facing dog, we were ready to start creating artwork!  I introduced the children to the art of Zentangle which was developed by a monk and a calligrapher.  There is no “wrong way” to Zentangle, and we created our designs on fabric using black sharpie marker.  

Next session we will sew the fabric into pouches to house the rock that I gave them.   Their “homework” was to find two more rocks before our next session.