This week's storytime was a special yoga storytime. Due to my back injury I was unable to do a yoga storytime last season. I'm still a bit creaky and wobbly but I managed to do yoga five times on storytime day. I did my morning yoga at home, ran through my two yoga books twice the morning of storytime and then did the same thing all over again for each storytime. I survived it all with only a little unhappiness from my back. Who knew yoga would be something I'd have to work for? I'm immensely grateful it's getting easier again. Nothing is quite like a yoga storytime, which is a nice treat to do every once in a while.
Books we read:
You Are a Lion! by Taeeun Yoo
I read this book the last time I did a yoga storytime and this week was just as successful as the last time. My only complaint is that the poses do not flow well. It's a little bit like yoga aerobics because it goes back and forth between floor poses and standing poses. As long as you get over that hump the book is really one of the best yoga books for children. My favorite thing about it is it gives the kids a chance to guess each pose. Robert suggested scanning the pages in both books for this storytime so that the grown-ups could easily see the poses (such a smart guy). This was a great idea. The grown-ups helped the kids with the trickier poses and I could see them looking at the screen a few times to do that. I also used my lovely book stand, which allowed me to hang out in the pose with them.
Have I told you how much I love this stand? Well, it sits perfectly on my storytime chair, which is a decent height for everyone to see the pages, and it gives me an opportunity to participate in whatever movement the book is asking us to do (if I cannot hold the book and do the movement at the same time).
*Side note: this stand is also perfect for eating and reading at the same time, which is the best way to eat in my opinion.
After each pose I made sure to pick up the book from the easel and read the little blurb about the pose. It's really tough to show kids you're "reading" the book during a yoga storytime because you're really not reading because you've memorized the dang thing so that you can do the poses with them. I struggled to balance this in the first storytime but did a much better job in the second storytime.
Yoga Frog by Nora Carpenter and Mark Chambers
I chose five poses from this book that were different from the first book and the first storytime struggled to stay engaged, even during the volcano pose, which is probably the most exciting yoga pose ever. In the second storytime I cut one pose out and made sure to count to ten in the star pose, where you begin in mountain and then fling your arms and legs out. Then, during volcano, when we counted down from ten between squatting like a frog and jumping like a volcano, they were a little bit more prepared for the countdown. They loved these two poses. Loved them. The crescent moon was also a lovely pose to do because we were able to really focus on breathing, which was just a pain in the booty for most of the other poses (terrible I know). BUT everyone did such a great job breathing during crescent moon I nearly burst with happiness. The breathing was all very exaggerated of course, but since we did all the Yoga Frog poses twice, they automatically did the breathing on their own the second time we did the pose. The Tree and Chair poses were awfully tough so I wouldn't do them again any time soon. Personally, I curse a little when I do the chair pose at home, but for whatever reason I thought the kids would like it. Turns out we're on the same page about the chair pose.
Activities:
Parachute Play - We did the same parachute warm-up and Animals on the Bus song as last week but this week we also played popcorn with bean bags that are not only different colors, but also different shapes (these things are great). This was a huge hit. I did forget that the beans bags stay on the parachute so well that we really need a couple balls to throw on there too to make it tougher.
The parachute was a huge hit this week. Before we put the parachute away all the kids went under it and made pretend snow angels while the grown-ups flapped the parachute above them. This was a lot of fun.
*Note: I have two bags of the bean bags, which is plenty for the smaller storytimes we've been doing. We also do not use the hexagon and pentagon, but I use them if we don't have enough shapes to go around. The whole popcorn game does get stalled though while we try to muddle through how many sides those shapes have. Thankfully I've only had to use them every once in a blue moon.
Songs:
We sang the dreaded hokey pokey and the ABCs in the first storytime. Thankfully the hokey pokey was cut short after hands and feet when I asked what we wanted to put in next and a little girl shouted, "ABCs," which everyone echoed enthusiastically.
We sang "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" in the second storytime and no one suggested any kind of weird animal like legos. It was a pretty tame version of the song.
Cute/Awesome Moments:
* I was feeling mighty insecure after the first storytime. There were things I wished I had done differently and I didn't always have 100% participation with the poses, which initially baffled me. (You don't like the chair pose either whaa?) Just as I was sinking into a pit of insecurities and storytime despair a coworker who was manning the desk told me a grandma had raved about the experience.
* In the second storytime I had lots of participation and the kids really understood the poses. A couple grown-ups, including a grandma, did the poses along with the kids, and this really made my day.
* Prior to reading the first book I asked if anyone did any yoga at home and a boy said he did yoga with his mom. This alone was such a cool response, but then each time we came to guessing a pose in the first book he knew most of them, including cobra!
* We weren't able to lie down and get completely quiet at the end of the first book in the first storytime, but we did it for a few seconds in the second storytime, which is just shy of miraculous.
* We talked a lot about mountain pose and I tried to come back to it before a lot of the poses. In the second storytime when I asked them to guess what pose I was doing they were able to guess the mountain pose by the end of storytime. I also changed it up a bit and asked them to do the mountain pose a couple times and there were a few kids who knew it by the end of storytime.
* Lastly, everyone roared very peacefully when I asked them to use their inside voices to roar. Nobody's roar made anyone else cry, and I really can't ask for a better response than that.
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