Teaching at the Head Start Health Institute is a joy for me. I love connecting and contributing to the participants and other educators. I’m engaged by the information shared by the other presenters and speakers. And I’m inspired by the Head Start organization and mission. Their work in providing quality early childhood care and education not only supports the children and families it serves, it lays a foundation for a healthy future for our country.
According to the latest research by Dr. Shonkoff, Director, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, “our early experiences literally shape our learning capacities as well as our future mental and physical health.” He explains that the physical, cognitive and social-emotional components of healthy development are inseparable and that every adult-child interaction matters for young children. Check out his Brain Builder video http://www.investinus.org/brain-builders and see why he is an advocate for greater investment in early childhood programs that engage, support and build the skills of parents, teachers and children.
I’m proud that my work and the Move with Me yoga story video classes and social-emotional educational materials are contributing to Head Start programs and curriculum. I love that our DVDs enable any teacher or parent to affordably provide their youngsters with “specialist quality” movement instruction, vigorous exercise and a tool-kit for self-regulation tools every day.
Below is a video created by InvestInUs.org. It is based on the research of Dr. Shonkoff.
“Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.” -Joseph Chilton Pearce
“It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.” -Leo F. Buscaglia
“Play is the exultation of the possible.” -Martin Buber
“Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good” -Lucia Capocchione
“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” -Mark Twain
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -George Bernard Shaw
“Play is the beginning of knowledge.” -George Dorsey
“Play is so integral to childhood that a child who does not have the opportunities to play is cut off from a major portion of childhood.” -Musselwhite
“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.” -Roger von Oech
“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” -Charles Schaefer
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” -Diane Ackerman
“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.” Abraham Maslow
“Whoever wants to understand much must play much.” -Gottfried Benn
“The true object of all human life is play.” -G. K. Chesterton
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” -Mr. Rogers
“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” -Kay Redfield Jamison
“Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” -Plato
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” -Carl Jung
“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” -O. Fred Donaldson
“The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.” Brian Sutton-Smith
“Those who play rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity for humor.” -Stuart Brown, MD
“In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
“If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.” -Jean Piaget
”The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” -Erik H. Erikson
Yoga in schools is proving to be an effective way to increase emotional intelligence, cultivate a cooperative classroom and build community. By teaching students simple exercises to cope with stress and develop mindfulness, they acquire tools for a lifetime of healthy self-regulation and well-being. Parents and teachers attest to the profound and positive impact on their children’s focus, fitness, behavior and academics.
In service of healthier kids and classrooms, Shanti Generation and Move with Me Action Adventures have teamed up to deliver yoga resources to more schools. We are sending teachers free yoga DVDs designed specifically for classrooms. When you purchase a DVD from us, we gift a DVD to a classroom.
Please help us send DVDs to the hundreds of teachers who have already requested FREE DVDs by enjoying our award-winning resources with your kids and supporting a teacher in introducing the benefits of yoga to her students. You will enrich so many lives!
To send a free DVD to a specific teacher, specify them by name, email, phone and address in the comment box at the end of the checkout process. As soon as we process your order, a free DVD will be mailed to your designated classroom.
Otherwise, as orders come in through our B1G1 page, we send to those on our list in a first come first serve basis. So please, help us spread the word about this program so all of the teachers who want to support the social and emotional development of their students can receive this free resource.
If you have any questions or would like more information, you can post on our facebook pages or send an email to: jeanne@shantigeneration.com.
Testimonial from Mike Russo, Director of the Davis Monthan Air Force Base Child Dev Center:
“The Move with Me DVDs are so much more than kids exercise DVDs. They are a terrific enhancement to our curriculum by truly supporting all developmental tasks and standards in an engaging, experiential, integrated way. We use them for PE and motor skills, early literacy and creative thinking, direction following and concentration as well as social-emotional learning and impulse control. Teachers are all using the “Adventure Skills” because they give kids behaviors/activities that they can use to pause and support themselves. Now, kids are not just controlling their impulses, they are learning how to redirect their thoughts and choices in a positive way, which really shifts and empowers them.”
Albert Einstein:“Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”
Did you know that key literacy milestones are impossible to achieve without certain motor milestones having been mastered? The process of acquiring specific motor skills wire the neural connections that help make reading and writing accessible and, eventually, masterful, fluid activities.
Did you know that without loving, supportive, safe bonds with adults and peers, children will experience emotional and mental stress, which has been directly tied with learning & emotional development delays?
Can you see the feedback loop? Learning is multi-dimensional.
Many paths nourish the learning body, mind, and heart, and those paths are not separate, but profoundly interconnected. Movement impacts the healthy function of the brain, emotions affect our state of mind, our state of mind influences our emotions, emotions influence movement patterns, etc.
Our children are not simply ‘blossoming minds’ – they are each, in and of themselves, an entire blossoming universe of connections and possibilities. With Scooter & Me Action Adventure Series you can:
1) Support multi-dimensional /experiential learning.
Our yoga stories are built on a multi-dimensional model of experiential learning and divided into 3 units: Body, Mind, and Heart. Each unit builds upon and reinforces the others.
2) Increase cognitive abilities.
Yoga poses, Brain Gym® activities, creative movement, and specific exercises are integrated into the choreography. The sustained active play increases the heart rate and, in turn, the secretion of neurotropic factors into the bloodstream such as BDNF, which Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. John Ratey describes as “miracle grow for the brain.”
3) Strengthen fine and gross motor skill development.
The Body Series, emphasizes the basics of physical development, giving your child the opportunity to practice & master strength balance, flexibility and complex coordination.
4) Enhance early literacy skills
Yoga stories invite kids to physically follow a narrative, which reinforces early literacy-building skills. Combine storytelling with rhythm, rhyme, and follow-along fun – you get a triple dose of literacy-boosting activity.
5) Support social-emotional development
Adventure Skills are yoga & Brain Gym® based self care and self-regulation skills that support your child’s
social-emotional development. These simple techniques are used within the story so children understand that they can use them like the characters do to calm and center themselves as needed to overcome obstacles and make smart choices.
6) Defuse stress
The Adventure Skills give you and your students or children a new fun vocabulary of activities to share for diffusing stress. Now when things get tense, hectic, frustrating, irritating, confusing, etc. everyone can breathe and support them selves in specific ways that really work. With the ability to self-regulate, kids can be a lot more relaxed and productive.
7) Enjoy easy access to support and guidance tools
The posted Parent / Teacher Guide provides you with ideas for related activities, discussion, and co-creative time, as well as a complete list of our Adventure Skills, with pictures, instructions, and explanations. Use this guide to reinforce and expand on the lessons in the DVD stories. And look for full 28-week curriculum for purchase and download in the Fall 2012.
When you think of mantra, if you are a student of yoga, you probably think of the recitation of beautiful Sanskrit phrases with a spiritual purpose. In a nutshell, the idea behind mantras is that specific words you repeat may become part of who you and reveal, over time, truths about yourself and your connection to a deeper source, when recited regularly with faith and feeling.
I like to explain it like this: What you think, you become. Thoughts and words can shape us – both the thoughts we speak inside our own mind and the words directed at us from others, when we internalize those words.
Mantras, if we expand our definition and view a little bit, are everywhere, really. And they are very powerful in every form they take.
The negative voice in your head becomes a mantra: “I can’t do this. I’m afraid. I”m not good enough. I’m ugly, I’m fat.” Eventually, these become a kind of truth, because a person who has these thoughts will react fearfully, will doubt himself, will see an unattractive person in every mirror she looks into. The repetitive negative voice in your head can also be directed at other people, “She’s fat. He is stupid. They are lazy.” Etc. A person thinking these thoughts will have a hard time seeing the good in the people and events around them, even when the good is clear to others. The Marketing and PR industries are masters of mantra: “You deserve a break today!” “Just do it.” “Indulge yourself.” “It does a body good!”
Do you ever feel like your head is full of other people’s ideas and images of who you should be and what you should desire or become?
Ask yourself what kinds of mantras you repeat to your children every day.
Do you sometimes feel like the proverbial ‘broken record.’ “Hurry up, we’re going to be late!” “Homework is important. You need to do good in school.” “You need to do better.” ‘You’re being (fill in the blank).” “Stop doing (fill in the blank).” “I love you. Have a great day!”
Are most of your messages like the last one, or like the ones preceding it?
What if we were to change our messages, our daily silent and spoken mantras and introduce positive, encouraging, proactive mantras for our kids – and ourselves? Mantras and messages that encourage us to tune into our inner, authentic voice and tune out the negative, distracting, thoughtlessly repeated messages that divide us from that authentic, wise, and loving voice?
The following 6 mantras are for children in that they are simple enough to be understood by children, and they are fun to say. However, they are also for grown-ups. A simple message is sometimes the most powerful message. And at younger ages, in particular, kids love when you say them together. One is in Sanskrit and traditional mantra verse. Two are in Gurmukhi and best known as performed by Snatam Kaur. I use them in all my children’s classes. The children absolutely love them. I love them, too! The other three are original, though the meanings they represent are universal and found in many teachings.
Feel free to add movement, vary the intonations, do them indoors, outdoors, jumping on your bed, running in circles – it doesn’t matter. Whatever you feel like doing – however your child wants to express the feelings of the mantra – let them be free to explore that and have fun with them! Don’t be surprised if you hear your kids saying them on their own one day, without any prompting from you.
Everywhere is Light
I am light
You are light
Everything is full of light!
The Nurturing Sun
The sun is in the sky
The sun is in me
The sun is in every person, every creature, every blade of grass and tree!
The sun loves all the world equally
I am Free
I feel happy,
I am not my happiness
I feel sad
I am not my sadness
I am free, I am unlimited possibility!
Sharing
Breathing in, I bring joy and energy into my heart and my whole body!
Breathing out, I share energy and joy from my heart and my whole body with the world!
Sa Ta Na Ma
This mantra incorporates finger movements, or mudras. For kids, they are just fun things to do with your fingers Both hands are doing the finger plays, simultaneously. Sa (touch pointer finger to thumb), Ta (touch middle finger to thumb), Na (touch ring finger to thumb), Ma (touch pinkie finger to thumb). For the corresponding song from Snatam’s lovely children’s view the video below:
Peace
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantih
It is preferable to pronounce Sanskrit correctly, but we are not concerned about this for children. The message is what matters. Let them draw out the sound of ‘Om” as they like, and then to say peace, we say “Shaanti, Shaanti, Shaantiheeee. The ‘ti’ in Shanti sounds like ‘tea’ (as in a cup of tea). The difference between the first 2 Shanti’s and the last, is that you add a 2nd syllable to the last one. When you add the extra syllable to the last one it sounds like you’ve add the word ‘he’ on the end, but you are drawing it out a little longer; Shanteaheeeee
Say ‘Shanti’ the first time for yourself, the 2nd time for all living things, and the 3rd time for the whole world & universe.
I am Happy, I am Good
I am happy
I am good
I am happy
I am good
Satnam, satnam, satnam -ji!
Wahe guru wahe guru wahe guru ji;
Below is a video of the homeschooling group Liz teaches yoga to, singing “I am Happy, I am Good” with Move with Me’s, Wendy Piret.
“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) wrote these words about what he thought of writing for adults.
What did he think we adults were missing that children are not missing?
How about the nonsensical/sensical beauty and wisdom of this?
“When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles… …they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle.”
We’ve always thought Dr. Seuss’ work was just as full of joy and wisdom for grown-ups as for kids. We’ve never outgrown him. Nor the other tales of our childhood. When he spoke derisively of adults in the quote above, we think he was thinking of a certain kind of adult, one who would never understand – or perhaps no one had mirrored for them lovingly in their childhood this simple truth: “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! We are grateful for your wisdom and guidance and love of childhood and its smallest, wisest inhabitants, in whose number we remain, at heart.
We all want our kids to be able to ground and center themselves. We want them to be stable and level-headed; we want them to be down to earth, able to stand their ground, have both feet firmly planted on the ground. Yet, we don’t teach them how. How many kids, or adults, know how to settle and stabalize themselves at will. Can you ground and strengthen yourself whenever you choose?
When kids, or anyone, are wound up physically, or worked up mentally, or upset emotionally or stood up socially, they become less grounded. In the accompanying strain, frustration, upset, anxiety, over-stimuation, etc., they unconsciously (and we all do this) pull their energy up. Notice the word UP is used to describe all kinds of agitated, unstable, unhappy mind-body states!
Yet, to be grounded, we must learn how to send our energy DOWN, even in the face of Upset. “Your Inner Mountain” Game is a fun and simple way to teach and practice rooting down. Knowing this simple mind-body technique enhances both self-regulation and confidence, clear thinking and personal power.
We love anything that reminds us to step away from the monotony of being a grownup and PLAY. This video did just that for us. We invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy…and then GET UP AND PLAY!
Find a patch of sunshine near a window or go outdoors into your yard or on your porch (If you can’t get your child out of bed, just open the curtains, and let the sunshine in. Together, reach your arms up, come up as high as you can on your tippy-toes and reach for the sun! Hold on and bring the sun into your heart (arms fold in, hands to heart, as if gathering in sunshine, like a bouquet of flowers).
With your hands still on your heart lightly, take a nice deep breath in and let the sunshine expand in your heart (usually the kids like to exaggerate this and pretend like they are puffing up like big balloons – just let your child act it out however they wish)
Now, exhale, let it go …..and share the sunshine with all of your friends (let your arms open out wide as you exhale, like you are giving the sunshine away to everyone)!
You can do this a few times. You can name someone you want to share your sunshine with, specifically,  but always remember to end, sharing it with the whole world. After all, that’s what the sun does – share her energy with each and every one of us. It’s a good lesson for all of us, and gets your morning in motion full of appreciation for the sunshine  all around you, right in this moment, reminding you that each day is full of potential to be wondrous and glorious!
Each and every one of us has the ability to feel calmer, more relaxed, and more alert at any given moment. This ability is called “Conscious Breathing”. When we use it, we are less stressed, more mindful, more creative and just plain cooler and kinder. When we teach it to our students and children, we give them a life-long tool for managing their stress and cultivating inner peace.
When we focus on breathing fully and deeply, we move out of our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight ) into our parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation and receptivity). When we consciously connect with and manipulate our breath, we plug into the communication highway, linking body and mind, with the messages we want to send. With specific breathing activities, we can calm, soothe, support or energize our”state” as needed.
Conscious breathing is simple to learn. Start integrating the 4 different breaths below into your day – at circle time, meal time, transition time, drive time. Support children in regularly practicing by pausing periodically and taking the time to breathe consciously. Encourage them to notice and name how the different breathing exercises affect how they feel and think and behave. Remind kids to use conscious breathing to help them manage their feelings and shift their own mind-body state, the same way you would other healthy habits such as teeth brushing, saying “please” and “thank you,” lining up for recess, cleaning up after themselves, etc.
When you model connecting with the power of conscious breathing and encourage your students and children to explore it for themselves, you give them a way to cultivate their own inner wisdom and strength.
Below are 4 different breathing activities to share with your children followed by a video demonstration.
Flower Breath: Imagine smelling a beautiful flower, breathe in through the nose and out the mouth, releasing any tension. Stop and smell the roses, daffodils, daisies or any other flower they like. This is a simple way to connect kids to their breath and how it helps them to feel.
Hissing Breath: Breathe in the nose, long deep inhale, and out the mouth on a hissing sound, slow and long. Extending the exhale will allow kids to slow down their inner speed. It’s wonderful to connect kids to their exhale to help them learn to slow themselves down, mentally and physically.
Bear Breath: Inhale through the nose, pause; exhale out the nose, pause. Breathe in to a count of 3 or 4, pause for a count of 1 or 2; breath out for a count of 3 or 4, pause for a count of 1 or 2. Repeat a few times. This will help ground and settle kids. Wonderful for restful, reflective time. Imagine a bear hibernating. Helpful before nap time, story time or any creative activity.
Bunny Breath: Just 3 quick sniffs in the nose and one long exhale out the nose. Invite kids to pretend to be bunnies, sniffing the air for other bunnies, carrots to eat, or safety. It can be a lovely cleansing breath when you use it in this way. You can also use it when kids are very upset and can’t find their breath, because it will help them connect to their exhale, so that they breathe instead of spin out.
Teaching at the Head Start Health Institute is a joy for me. I love connecting and contributing to the participants and other educators. I’m engaged by the information shared by the other presenters and speakers. And I’m inspired by the Head Start organization and mission. Their work in providing quality early childhood care and education not only supports the children and families it serves, it lays a foundation for a healthy future for our country.
Both hands are doing the finger plays, simultaneously. Sa (touch pointer finger to thumb), Ta (touch middle finger to thumb), Na (touch ring finger to thumb), Ma (touch pinkie finger to thumb). For the corresponding song from Snatam’s lovely children’s view the video below:
