Description
Play one school-appropriate song and encourage youth to move! Make sure they have enough room to move around the room. Show youth how to do the twist, jump, lawn mower, wave, water sprinkler and high knees.
Category: Girl Scouts
Yoga For Any Room! Animal Pose: Sea Turtle Relaxation
Description
Lie on the floor on your back with your legs straight and arms at your sides. Or sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and hands on your desk or lap.
The palms of your hands are facing up and resting on the floor, desk or lap.
Close your eyes and breathe gently.
Focus on your breath and allow any thoughts or distractions to come to you and just let them go, refocusing on your breath.
Sometimes you might need a word to focus on, or a favorite place to imagine like lying or sitting on a beach. Imagine the warm sand, the hot sun and the cool breeze off the water. Your breath sounds like the waves! As you breathe in, listen! It sounds like the waves coming up to the shore. As you breathe out, imagine the waves going back out to sea. Keep breathing with the waves for another minute or two.
Yoga For Any Room! Animal Pose: Relaxed Monkey Pose
Description
Kneel on the floor on your knees, and then sit back on your heels. If you are sitting in a chair, keep your feet flat on the floor.
Lean forward and stretch your arms forward to the ground. Continue stretching as far as you can. Can you touch your forehead to the floor? If you are sitting on a chair, just reach down to the floor as far as you can.
Stretch your arms out as far as they will go, allow your body to relax.
Take in big monkey breaths, feel your chest rise with each breath in and your chest relax toward the floor with each breath out, breathe in and out at your own pace. Relax for a minute.
Yoga For Any Room! Animal Pose: Elephant
Description
Stand up.
Bend forward with your arms hanging down.
Clasp your hands together, with fingers interlocked.
Walk around the room, bent over, and swinging your trunk.
After a minute, stretch your trunk high up into the air. Lean back and let out a big elephant sound like a horn!
Yoga For Any Room! Space Pose: Moon Walk
Description
Sit in your chair or lie down on the floor on your back.
Begin to walk in the air. Keep your right leg straight and lift it up as you lift your left arm.
Breathe in as you lift. Breathe out as your arm and leg go down.
Then breathe in again and lift your left leg and right arm together.
Breathe out as your arm and leg go down.
Keep going. Lift your leg and stretch your arm straight up toward the sky.
Moon Walk balances the two sides of your brain and helps you think better.
Yoga For Any Room! Space Pose: Shooting Star
Description
Sit on the floor with your feet in front of you and your hands behind you on the floor.
Breathe in and push yourself up into a kind of backwards push-up.
Make yourself into a perfectly straight line, like a shooting star, by pushing your stomach up and point your toes away from you.
Hold this pose for a count of 10, 20 or 30. Can you go for 50?
Shooting Star makes your arms, legs and stomach muscles strong.
You can also do this pose while sitting in a chair. Hold the edges of the chair and push up like the description above.
Yoga For Any Room! Space Pose: Space Float
Description
Sit on the floor with your legs crossed or in a chair with feet flat on the floor.
Take hold of your outside ankle. If you are sitting on a chair, hold onto the edges of the chair by the outside of your legs, above the knees.
Breathe in deeply as you stretch your body forward, chest and stomach out.
Breathe out as you slump back, spine is curved, chest is caved in.
Keep moving this way and get faster and faster.
Space float gives you a flexible spine. It keeps your back muscles relaxed and strong. It also helps you digest your food.
Beetle on Back
Description
Have students lie on their back with arms and legs straight up in the air. Instruct them to tighten their abdominal muscles or pull their belly button in (engage abs), then have students lower their right leg and left arm at the same time while leaving their opposite arm and leg in a stationary position. Instruct them to switch back and forth and remember to keep breathing.
Secret Food and Fitness
Description
Tell the students to think of a name of a fruit and remember it. Then tell the students to move about the gym and find another person who has selected the same fruit as you have. When two students with the same fruits find each other they stop and do five jumping jacks, three push-ups or any other chosen activity. Once the two food items have found each other and the activity is completed, the students should think of a different fruit and start moving to find the new fruit item chosen.
For example: John and Marissa have each selected apple. They move around the room. When they whisper the word “apple” to each other, they find out that they have a match. They both do five jumping jacks and then each pick a new fruit and start looking for that fruit match.
This game could also be played with any other food group category as well as fitness activity (swimming, running, baseball, etc.).
Daily Rule
Description
Establish a new daily rule every day that includes physical activity. Lunge to the water fountain, tip toe to the pencil sharpener, stretch before sitting down, or hop 5 times when getting out of your seat. Eventually the students can start making the rule.
Modification Option
If you have youth who use a wheelchair, provide them with options of a “daily rule” to bring them into the game!
