Kathryn's Teacher Ed Portfolio

Category: Free Inquiry

Kids goofing around
Photo by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash

Yoga & Emotional Regulation

March 23, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I have become increasingly interested in teaching emotional and self-regulation in kids, and yoga is a great way to do so! Yoga connects the body and mind. The mind interprets and labels emotions, and the body experiences them. Connecting the two can lead to better regulation of emotions. Yoga can help to identify and understand emotions and how they react to them (Gould, 2014).

Emotions are like the weather!

Hannah Gould made a great comparison: emotions are like the weather. They shift, change, and can be unpredictable. They can be affected by many things, such as sensory experiences, hunger, fatigue, excitement and anxiety.

Yoga can help to become mindful of the variability of our own emotional patterns.

Yoga & Attention

Yoga fosters self-regulation, through yoga poses and other mindfulness practices. Balance  poses are a great way to self-monitor and deeply root yourself. For example, in tree pose, students must focus inwards and adjust their muscle actions. The process may be wobbly at first, but will challenge students to succeed. When they do, they will be deeply satisfied!

Tree yoga pose

Photo by Katee Lue on Unsplash

What does it take to help students with their emotional regulation?

  • Patience
  • Encouragement
  • Hands-on assistance

https://www.beyondbooksmart.com/executive-functioning-strategies-blog/developing-emotional-regulation-skills-through-yoga

Breathing Exercises

There are many breathing exercises that you can do with your students, but a couple of my favourite are bunny breaths and dragon breaths.

Dragon Breath:

Bunny Breathing:

A fun video I found for helping a child calm down who is struggling with self-regulation:

  1. Pizza Breathing
  2. Magic Mustache
  3. Quite Lap
  4. Self Hug

Overall, it is important to teach students self-regulating skills, and yoga is a great tool to do that!

https://www.yoremikids.com/news/emotional-regulation-activities-for-kids

Kids doing yoga
"Reaching Higher" by /ltus is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Yoga in the Classroom

March 10, 2021 / / 0 Comments

As I have been enjoying my yoga practice, I am starting to think more about how I can incorporate it into my classroom in the future. I want to start researching ideas so that I will more more comfortable with it when the time comes. Bringing yoga into the classroom is a fun way to get moving, practice mindfulness and to learn!

Yoga in the Classroom Ideas

From Camille Dodson on DOYOUYOGA:

1. Use a yoga card deck

  • Illustrates the poses in a kid friendly way
  • There are many decks available to buy, but you can also make your own!

yoga cards for kids in black and white and color

2. Make yoga part of your routine

  • Add yoga to morning circle
    • This helps to centre kids
  • Add yoga to transitions
    • This helps to refocus and reset
  • When standing in line
    • Can do standing poses or a breathing exercise
  • Anytime energy is high

3. Offer yoga as a break

  • Set up a mat in the corner of your classroom and allow students to use it for a couple of poses when they are feeling overwhelmed or just need a break
  • Have some yoga cards so that kids can be reminded of what to do

4. Weave yoga into existing units

  • If you are studying trees, students can do a tree pose
  • Students can also make up poses, such as making up a penguin pose if you’re studying penguins
  • Make letter poses if learning the alphabet

5. Use online yoga resources

  • As in my last post on yoga educational videos, there are so many online resources that you can use to teach kids yoga!

From Laura Driscoll on the Social Emotional Workshop:

6. Deescalation & coping skills

  • Add new yoga poses to coping skills toolbox
  • Teaching 3 poses that students with self-regulation struggles that they can use in succession paired with breathing can greatly benefit them
  • Talk to the student about when they should use the yoga strategy

7. Make it fun and engaging

  • There are lots of fun and engaging yoga games you can play with kids, such as:
    • Follow the Leader
    • Yoga Freeze Dance
    • Red Light, Green Light, yoga version
    • Mirror yoga
    • Yoga spinner game

From Kaplan, Using Yoga in the Classroom:

Why use yoga in the classroom?

  • It is a healthy way to express emotions and behaviour
  • It is relaxing and peaceful, putting minds at ease and reducing feelings of anxiety and fear
  • It improves memory, focus and clarity
  • It encourages community
  • It improves gross motor development
  • It can improve regulation skills such as decreasing impulsivity by focusing on reflection and patience
Kids practicing yoga
"Kids Yoga" by Georgia National Guard is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Educational Yoga Videos

March 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments

“Yoga is the artwork of awareness on the canvas of body, mind, and soul.”

–  Amit Ray, “Yoga and Vipassana”

Inspired by our class this week on educational video, I decided to dive into some educational yoga video!

This video by Krishna Sudhir from TED-Ed on YouTube talks about what yoga does to your body and brain.

Yoga Sutras – defined yoga as the restraining of the mind from focusing on external objects in efforts to reach a state of pure consciousness

Overtime, yoga began to incorporate physical elements.

3 core elements remain in common day yoga:

  1. Physical postures
  2. Breathing exercises
  3. Spiritual contemplation

This blend has a unique sense of health advantages:

  • boosts strength & flexibility
  • improves heart and lung function
  • enhances psychological well-being

What have studies shown?

  • it is tough to make specific claims
  • it is difficult to determine which component of yoga is improving which health benefit

Flexibility & Strength

  • stretching helps muscles become more elastic
  • no one form of yoga has been shown to improve flexibility more
  • helpful at reducing pain and benefits breathing related to some chronic conditions

Psychological Effects

  • little conclusive evidence of how yoga helps
  • there is evidence to suggest yoga can help reduce symptoms of stress

Classroom Recordings of Yoga

I have been starting to think about how I can incorporate yoga into my classroom. Educational videos from other teachers are helpful so that I can see how they teach yoga. Here are a few that I’ve found, that would be classified as a “classroom recording” educational video

Standing Yoga Sequence

Chair Yoga

Physical Activity Breaks – Ready to Learn!

There are so many educational yoga videos available. As a teacher, there are many videos you could play for your class to follow. Additionally, teacher’s can show kids videos about the benefits of yoga. Also, teacher’s can use videos to learn for themselves to be able to pass that knowledge along!

Yoga pose involving strength
Photo by Patrick Kool on Unsplash

Yoga & Strength

February 26, 2021 / / 0 Comments

During our EPHE 311 class last week, I was doing a push up and realized that it was easier than a push up has ever felt before. I was confused at first because I couldn’t remember the last time that I did a push up. Quickly I realized that the cause of my easier-than-usual pushup had to be because I had been practicing yoga frequently. This was the first time that I really felt like yoga was making a difference for me physically.

I always hear people say that practicing yoga regularly improves your strength and physical health/appearance, but I wasn’t sure if I really believed it… until I felt it for myself. I always thought traditional strength training was the only way to get stronger, but it turns out that practicing yoga regularly and holding certain postures for a long period of time can drastically improve not only balance, coordination and flexibility, but also strength!

Below is a good yoga video focused on building strength:

While it is important to balance all types of yoga, tending to the spiritual, emotional, and physical health, the physical aspect (Hatha yoga) is why many people do yoga, and kids can also greatly benefit from the physical aspects of yoga!

Sparked by my curiosity, I decided to look into how yoga can improve children’s lives in a physical way. The article “The effects of yoga practice on balance, strength, coordination and flexibility on healthy children aged 10-12 years,” talks about the improvement yoga can make in children’s lives by increasing their balance, strength, coordination and flexibility. They use the term ‘healthy’ children because there are many studies done on how yoga can benefit ‘non-healthy’ children, so this study is based off of ‘healthy’ children.

The Study

For 8 weeks, 26 children participated in this study, practicing yoga led by a registered yoga teacher for 40 minute sessions, 1-3 times per week. Multiple tests were done to assess the children’s balance, strength, coordination and flexibility before and after the experiment. The results were that the trial did not improve their strength and bilateral coordination, but it did improve their balance and flexibility.

Although this study did not conclude with improved strength in children, it did state that it may benefit people by improvements in energy, muscle tone, fine motor coordination, flexibility, postural alignment, cardiovascular fitness, attention, concentration, behaviour and relaxation.

‘Non-healthy’ children, such as children with asthma, behavioural disabilities and cancer have been studied to see their improvements due to yoga, and were found to have increased hand-grip strength, endurance and motor performance.

While research in how yoga affects children’s balance, strength, coordination, and flexibility have been limited, there are studies that show that yoga improved children’s flexibility and balance. Unfortunately, strength has not been shown to significantly improve from yoga in children, but this may be because of the lack of studies.

Reference

Donahoe-Filmore, B., & Grant, E. (2019). The effects of yoga practice on balance, strength, coordination and flexibility in healthy children aged 10-12 years. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 23(4), 708-712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2019.02.007

Meditation Pose
Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

The Lost Teachings of Yoga

February 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I have chosen ‘The Lost Teachings of Yoga – How to Find Happiness, Peace, and Freedom Through Time-Tested Wisdom’ by George Feuerstein as the yoga philosophy book that I will read. Since I am already extremely busy with school, I have decided to listen to the book on Audible so that I can listen to it while doing others things such as working out, driving or doing housework.

This book speaks to the spiritual aspect of yoga, which has been slowly lost over many years as yoga has become more Westernized. Feuerstein says that many yoga teachers focus only on the physical aspect of yoga (Hatha yoga) and not at all on the spiritual, emotional and healthy mind side. Freuerstein talks about the five moral virues that have been lost overtime with yoga, and that these teachings could offer guidance with problems we are facing around the world.

The seven branches of yoga:

  1. Râja-Yoga (Royal Yoga) – liberation through meditation and deep concentration
  2. Hatha-Yoga (Forecful Yoga) – liberation through physical transformation
  3. Jnâna-Yoga (Wisdom of Yoga) – liberation through teachings from higher wisdom that discerns between the real and unreal
  4. Karma-Yoga (Action Yoga) – liberation through self-transcending service
  5. Bhakti-Yoga (Devotional Yoga) – liberation through self-surrender in the face of the Divine
  6. Tantra-Yoga (Continuity Yoga) – liberation through ritual, visualization, subtle energy work, and the perception or the identity of the ordinary world and the transcendental Reality
  7. Mantra-Yoga (Yoga of Potent Sound) – liberation through recitation of empowered sounds

The five moral virtues:

  1. Non-harming
  2. Truthfulness
  3. Non-stealing
  4. Greedlessness
  5. Chasity

These five virtues are interconnected and aim to develop healthy relationships between all beings including nature.

My thoughts…

While I appreciate learning of the original teachings of yoga and agree with the overall goal of a happy, kind and peaceful life, it will be hard for me to practice all of the branches of yoga and all of the virtues all of the time. However, Freuerstein did state to not kick yourself if you cannot practice all of these, but to just do your best and work toward them all of the time.

My practice with Yoga With Adriene this morning ended in a nice phrase that relates to this topic:

“…commit to something regularly so that you can be happy and healthy in body [and] in mind and spirit because when you feel good, you look good. If you want to have a good body or feel good in your body, you gotta tend to all parts” (Yoga with Adriene, 2017).

Overall, I think that it is so important to build a happy and healthy spirit as well as a happy and healthy body. Both are interconnected and should both be practiced!

References

Freuerstein, G. (2014). The lost teachings of yoga. Sounds true.

https://www.audible.ca/pd/The-Lost-Teachings-of-Yoga-Audiobook/B0719C292K

Yoga with Adriene (2017, April 9). Healthy body yoga – yoga with Adriene [Video]. YouTube.

 

Exude happiness and motivation
Photo by Natalie Grainger on Unsplash

Yoga & Motivation

February 1, 2021 / / 0 Comments

In one of my classes this semester, motivation has been discussed thoroughly. When thinking about how to motivate my future students, I must also look at what motivates me. We have discussed the importance of intrinsic motivation, doing something because you like doing it rather than for some external reason such as a reward or punishment.

It is difficult to say that doing yoga every morning is intrinsic, as I am doing it because of this class and the need to complete a free inquiry in order to pass, but I can feel that I actually enjoy the practice of yoga and yoga in itself is motivating me.

Yoga has helped me wake up earlier than I would without it. It feels good to move my body, even if t’s just for a few minutes and low intensity. I feel like I am more productive throughout my day, and my body has never felt better.

I believe that I will continue to practice yoga beyond this class, as it helps me feel motivated and focused. I feel intrinsically driven to practice!

Yoga pose
Photo by Avrielle Suleiman on Unsplash

Technology and yoga?

January 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments

What comes to mind when you think of yoga? Probably peace, quiet, relaxation and meditation. Technology is not typically associated with yoga, but it can play an integral role in enhancing your practice.

Research

I have been using forums such as Google to research questions I have related to yoga. Reading about other people’s yoga journeys and looking at studies regarding the benefits of yoga are a big part of my yoga practice.

On the Goodreads app, I have been able to search for books on yoga. The app shows ratings and reviews from other people so that I can find a book that is best suited for me.

Practice

Over the past week, I have been practicing yoga alongside YouTube yoga videos. Some of my favourites so far include Yoga With Adriene, Yoga With Kassandra, Jessica Richburg, Blessed Yoga and Yoga With Bird.

Practicing yoga in front of a screen isn’t ideal, but we are fortunate to have the technology to be able to practice yoga at home, since the pandemic has resulted in most yoga studios currently being closed.

Practicing yoga at home is also a very cost effective way to stay healthy. Additionally, there are more options depending on if you want an easy or hard practice, a long or short practice, or a routine that targets a specific area of your body.

I am also happy to say that I have become more comfortable with my practice, and was able to lead my own practice on Friday morning. Leading myself allowed me to stretch the areas that I felt needed attention, spending as much or as little time on them as I pleased. I integrated technology into my own practice by listening to calm yoga music on YouTube.

Recording

Recording my yoga journey so that I am able to see my progression is important to myself so that I can reflect, and so that I can properly document for this free inquiry project. I have been using my Apple Watch Workout and Activity apps, my Renpho Scale, and journal.

Apple Watch

Each time I practice yoga, I start a workout on my watch. The workout then gets recorded and stored in the Activity app. This keeps track of workout time, calories and heart rate. I have noticed the difference in calories being burnt between different yoga sessions.

Renpho Scale

This smart scale has allowed me to keep track of my weight, BMI, body fat, body water, muscle mass and more. I use the scale every morning before my workout, and intend to continue to use it so that I can see my progress over this semester.

How I’m Feeling…

The good… It has been a long and busy first two weeks of  this semester, but practicing yoga for 10 minutes per day has been great for me. In fact, I have been getting out of bed easier knowing that I can spend 10 relaxing minutes stretching by myself while watching the sunrise. Although there are some days I have trouble getting up, having a goal of 10 minutes has made practicing feel achievable. I have found that my energy levels are higher for the day,  and I am overall feeling good.

The bad… I am really struggling with practicing for one hour. This past week, I was only able to focus for 30 minutes until I gave up. I have decided that I am not going to dwell on not being able to practice for an hour, but I am going to be working on my stamina so that I can focus for a full one-hour session.

I am excited for another week filled with morning yoga.

Photo by Avrielle Suleiman on Unsplash

Yoga for the soul

January 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I have always been interested in yoga, and have gone through a few phases of practicing yoga. I even volunteered at a yoga studio for a couple of months, but found myself disengaged as I was distracted with personal matters.

Like most people, I struggle to stay consistent when it comes to health and exercise. I set unrealistic expectations, exercise hard for a week, then stop after skipping a couple of days. I would like to use this free inquiry to deepen my understanding of yoga so I can set up healthy habits for myself that I can maintain once this class is over.

Practicing yoga everyday may improve immune health (especially important right now), focus, strength, sleep, posture, flexibility, balance, bone strength, happiness, energy, heart health, and may decrease anxiety, weight, and pain (https://www.thelist.com/205906/when-you-do-yoga-every-day-this-is-what-happens-to-your-body/). So it seems like a no brainer, and I’m going to try and see the results for myself.

While first thinking about my inquiry, I came up with a few questions that I would like to explore:

  • How can practicing yoga affect my everyday life?
  • How can practicing yoga impact me positively as a childcare worker and teacher candidate?
  • How much does yoga need to be practiced in order to see and feel change?
  • What kinds of yoga are there?

As for a goal, yoga is not something that can be completed and finished, it is ongoing and a lifestyle philosophy. To get started, I am going to commit to practicing yoga for at least 10 minutes everyday, and for one hour one day per week. I am also going to commit to reading at least one yoga philosophy book.

So, I’ve purchased a nice yoga mat and yoga towel, I am feeling motivated, and I’m ready to start my journey.

Featured Image by Andrew Kalat, https://www.flickr.com/photos/90811165@N00/2242940421

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