Bumblebee Classroom – July 2018

Wednesday, August 8th, 2018
Category: Bumblebee Classroom, Lafayette Campus

This month we celebrated birthdays: Avery, Luki, Willie, Otto, and Elliot! We also had Hat Day, Pajama Day and Beach Day! We said good-byes to children heading to Kindergarten and beyond and welcomed some “soon-to-be” Ladybugs to Bumblebee!

This blog post we shine the light on our weekly yoga practice with Roxanna! She has written a post about what the children are practicing in this session.

Light Shine Yoga

Hi parents! It’s an honor and pleasure to be with your children and teach them yoga; I love seeing their progress each week as they develop their strength, concentration and balance. For this 10 week series, we are working on a Warrior sequence, which includes conversations about how a warrior develops inner strength and focus to stay grounded and present to all of life’s invitations and challenges. Our sequence includes a particularly beautiful posture called “Humble Warrior” which the kids practice with particular reverence. It is absolutely heart opening to see these kiddos bowing down in humble warrior.

Speaking of heart opening, we have been practicing a particular pranayam* and mudra** lately. It is called “Heart Breath” and we start the class this way along with our usual Namaste. In Heart Breath, each child is invited to sit comfortably, place their hands on their heart and close their eyes. We take a deep inhale and on the exhale, send love to our hearts and bodies. For the second round, I invite each child to think of somebody they love (e.g. their mom or dad, a sibling, a grandparent, etc.) and take a deep inhale. On that exhale, I ask the children to imagine sending love to that special person. For the third and final heart breath, I ask the children to imagine something/someone (e.g. relative, friend, animal, tree, earth) that might appreciate some extra love and on that third inhale/exhale, they send love to wherever they chose. It has been incredibly sweet to hear the impromptu sharings of the kids telling me who or what they chose to send love to.

I invite you to try this Heart Breath practice at home with your children. It’s a wonderful way to come to stillness, be in the present moment and it can relieve tension and stress. Yoga is a wonderful thing to incorporate at any age, and it’s such a gift to be introduced to yoga and meditation as a child, because they are all such natural yogis! Maria Montessori was a big proponent of children using their bodies: “Movement, or physical activity, is an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.”

Namaste,

Roxanna

*pranayama – breath control
**mudra – hand position