How to Use Storytelling Yoga in the Classroom

classroom storytelling yogaIf you have an extra 15 minutes you can accomplish three things in your classroom:

  • Calm yourself and your students
  • Engage them in a story
  • Become more physically fit

You can accomplish all of this through Storytelling Yoga. It combines two popular yet age old activities; storytelling and yoga. The benefits of both activities alone are incredible, but when combined, you will likely engage more students than you normally would using only one of the two. This appeals to visual learners, audio learners and kinesthetic learners.

All you need are yoga cards, yoga mats, and children’s books.

The first time I did this activity, I used, “My Daddy is a Pretzel” by Baron Baptiste. This book is a great one to start with because it has the yoga poses mixed right into the story. However, if you intent to use what you have or do it for more than one lesson, any short children’s book will do.

Once you have your book, go through the yoga cards and pick ones that lend themselves to the story. For example, if the book talks about a body of water, you could demonstrate the waterfall pose. If the heroine comes on the scene, you could demonstrate the warrior pose.

storytelling yoga

Storytelling Yoga can be used in several ways. You can begin each class with a brief narrative and deep breaths, use it as a reward for good behavior, or during regular story hour. If you are trying to teach teamwork or cooperation, you can use the poses involving two people.

I use Storytelling Yoga once a week when the Special Education classes visit the Media Center. It allows them to focus on the story, while “acting out” the poses.. The activity takes very little prep time which is great. It combines learning with movement and physical education, and teaches students many different skills.

Be sure to check out my online PD course called Reinventing the Library. Learn how to transform your Library or Media Center today!

storytelling yogaAbout the Author: 

Rose Sgambelluri has taught High School Business for over 20 years. She made the transition to Library Media Specialist 2 years ago and hasn’t looked back. She is currently employed as the Library Media Specialist at Boston Middle School in Laporte, Indiana. She has served as a consultant for the Laporte County Public Library; working in collection development, developing curriculum kits and training Library staff.

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49 thoughts on “How to Use Storytelling Yoga in the Classroom

  1. It’s such a great idea to introduce kids to yoga and to use it as a part of their education. I was able to attend yoga for a PE class as a teenager and it had such an impact on my self-esteem and ability to focus. I will be sharing this with my teacher friends

  2. Yoga has been a basic piece of Indian human advancement as it was there with individuals, however it has gotten mainstream in the previous hardly any years. It has been a key strategy for neighborhood treatment of numerous infections, written in old writings.
    But training young bees for yoga is not easy things. Being a trainer I have been facing lots of difficulties, but storytelling is one of my most successful way out. Thank you for the post. Keep motivating.

  3. It’s such a great idea to introduce kids to yoga and to use it as a part of their education. I was able to attend yoga for a PE class as a teenager and it had such an impact on my self-esteem and ability to focus. I will be sharing this with my teacher friends

  4. Yoga is a cool things that makes a lot of difference in each of us lives. Practicing yoga daily is a good decision that you can make in your life.

  5. It’s such a great idea to introduce kids to yoga and to use it as a part of their education. I was able to attend yoga for a PE class as a teenager and it had such an impact on my self-esteem and ability to focus. I will be sharing this with my teacher friends. 🙂

  6. very interesting article Yoga is amazing—even if you only practice for one hour a week, you will experience the benefits of the practice. If you can do more than that, you will certainly experience more benefits. I suggest starting with two or three times a week, for an hour or an hour and a half each time.

  7. You have really put great and informative thought in this article. And I must say that the article is really knowledgeable and greatly written so thanks for sharing it with us.

  8. I really love this idea and you have really nicely written so thanks for sharing and keep it up for great work…!!

  9. Thank you very much for sharing very useful information to us and yoga is really very helpful and important for us to get a healthy life so keep posting.

  10. Yoga is so important nowadays this is really so helpful and beneficial for our health and our body… Your article is so good, Thanks, Keep it up…

  11. Hi,
    Thanks for sharing more informative and amazing article even the blog is awesome.
    I really appreciate your hard work and say good work.
    keep it up.

  12. Thank you very much for sharing very useful information to us and yoga is really very helpful and important for us to get a healthy life so keep posting.

  13. Yoga is definitely the best workout but I prefer strength training. Why? Because strength training helps in quick fat loss and massive muscle gains.

  14. I would like to say many many thanks to you for this informative blog post, it really explained everything in detail. Your Blog is very interesting and helpful for me to get knowledge for healthy diet and to kepp healthy in busy life. Usually I never do comment on blogs but your blog is so convincing to write something about it. This is an impressive Blog Thanks for sharing and hopefully you will share more in future also.

  15. Namaste,
    very good & unique article. thanks for sharing great information. keep up the good work.

  16. Wow! This article is really interesting, thank you! I think that it is so helpful for a person who also wants to increase their mental health or silhouette.

  17. Love this idea. Going to share with my son who will be a first time teacher of 3rd graders. He also has a Special Ed. Degree.

    Thanks

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