Pass the Pose

One of my favorite parts of teaching Mind Move Make is feeling the sense of connection and community that is created between the children in the class.  At the beginning of this class, I asked the children how they were doing and if anyone had something he or she wanted to share.  The twins in my class talked about how they were going to visit their grandparents.  Another girl was excited to share that she was going out to dinner with her family.  I was surprised when one girl raised her hand and said that her grandmother died.  She talked about it for a little while and shared how she was feeling.  Everyone showed respect and consideration for her.  This student was slightly shy when our class began, so I was honored that she felt comfortable enough to tell us about her grandmother.

After practicing our two minutes of mindful breathing, we warmed up our bodies by finding child's pose and practicing cat-cow.  Then we imagined our bodies were the ocean's waves rolling in and out from the shore.  After finding a little bit of movement, we played a game called Pass the Pose!  Going around in a circle, each child got to share and teach his or her favorite yoga pose.  Most of the students have been in Mind Move Make for two sessions, so many of them know a lot of the poses and they definitely have favorites!  It was fun going around and learning about the poses the students like the best.  I helped when they needed assistance with teaching the pose, but for the most part everyone truly flourished when teaching the poses themselves!  They liked the game so much we played two rounds.

Then I shared a book called Coral Reefs by author and illustrator Jason Chin.  While looking at the pictures, I had the students work together to tell the story!  The illustrations are gorgeous and show a girl finding a book about the coral reef at the library.  As she is reading the book, the entire library slowly transforms into an underwater world, and the sea creatures she reads about become real.

After being inspired by Jason Chin's exciting book, the students had the chance to complete their own coral reef artworks!  Some students continued cutting out and adding coral while others were busy making more sea creatures to their creations.  Below are many of the student's artworks!