A recent WSFEE grant brought Yoga for Classrooms to D101, via a 5-session training class for teachers who were taught student-friendly yoga techniques and benefits.
Research shows physical movement, careful breathing techniques, and self-awareness help increase academic performance, while nurturing students’ social and emotional well-being. Classroom yoga encourages students’ commitment to self-development and self-observation, creating room for a heightened sense of awareness.
A popular website called MindBodyGreen lists the “Top 5 Reasons” for yoga benefitting children in school as:
- Kids’ yoga improves academic performance (through increased focus and self-regulation)
- Combats the typical sedentary school day
- Yoga teaches kids to get along with others
- Decreases kid stress (by teaching how to calm down, and focus on empowering and improving selves)
- It encourages healthy choices
The informed and targeted instruction provided to the teachers through this grant, allows them to help children achieve positive end results. Teachers supplement physical education in the classroom environment in an organized way, with specific objectives of either calming or energizing students throughout the school year. The timing of the Yoga breaks is worked into the daily schedule, always honoring academic focus first and foremost.
“The time we spend on practice is not “lost” academic time,” said K.B., a third grade teacher who has used Yoga for Classrooms. “It actually increases student productivity on academic tasks. The children are more focused, alert, better listeners, more able to follow directions and are more relaxed during challenging tasks.”
To that we say, Namaste.
