- Classroom Yoga
- Yoga for trauma
- Yoga helps folks with special needs
- Why we do family yoga …
- Having Fun in School!
- Family Fun Yoga!
- Salt Lake School District learns to Relax!
- Classroom Yoga Breaks
- Help kids learn to manage stress at home and school
- Energize your yoga practice with some new information!
- East meets West
- Healthier School Parties
- The Whole Family
- Connect the Family!
- Yoga thought for the day
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What We Like
When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress Disease Connection
by Gabor Matte, MD (click cover)
Wonderful and accessible insights into how our stress affects us, an important book for those working with children ~Books We Recommend
Click cover. "Train Your Mind to Change Your Brain" by Sharon Begley.
The is a book filled with reasons to do yoga as it celebrates the ability of the brain to rewire and to learn new tricks. We can do this at any age. It's filled with science and wonderful stories of why this all can work. A heartening book to share.
Salt Lake School District learns to Relax!
Many thanks to the wonderful teachers, K-12, in the Salt Lake District (about 90 strong!) who attended our yoga workshop at their Career, College, and Civic Reading Spring Conference today.
They came to learn some 5 minute yoga breaks to share with their classes and to help manage their own stress. It was such a fun group — lots of good breathing and laughing and requests for staff trainings. For more on the yoga breaks, visit greentreeyoga.org or contact Yael at yoga@greentreeyoga.org for more info on how to get it into your school.
Classroom Yoga Breaks
Many thanks again to Salt Lake Community College 
for the generous donation to help fund our yoga classroom yoga programs! We are starting in four area schools and another one will follow. Many thanks to our fabulous volunteers too -Andrea Havemann at Silver Crest Elem (Herriman); Julie Iorg at MorningSide (Holladay); Rachelle Ballard at Newman (SLC); and Cayle Gabbott at Taylorsville Elem. For more info contact Yael yoga@greentreeyoga.org or listen to free breaks on our website!
Set Yourself Up for Success
School Volunteering: How Much is Too Much?
The New York Times had an article on parents who just got so burned out from volunteering they had to say NO. Don't let it get to that point. Make realistic decisions about what you like to do and how much time you have to give. It can be once, it can be 10 minutes a week.
Set yourself up for success so that you don't end up saying NO to everything school related. It's your time -- take control of how you use it! Why it's just like your breathing - you control how you breathe and therefore how if affects how you feel. Ahh. Maybe volunteer in a school to teach some 5 minute yoga breaks! Visit greentreeyoga.org to learn more about the program. Listen to free tracks!
Yoga for Teens
If you work with teens and are looking for a way to help them learn some stress management techniques and learn to be healthier, check out this book: Yoga for Kids and Teens.
”Yoga for Kids and Teens is a friendly, creative, smiling invitation to take more steps into the journey of yoga. Experience an easy, inspiring, ‘five minute yoga break for classrooms’ and Sola Stikk Yoga, useful for all ages, sizes, shapes and abilities. Charming illustrations with an excellent chapter on healing relaxations to poetically ”’melt-the-mind.”’ — Lilias Folan, Author of Lilias! Yoga Gets Better With Age and The Inner Smile.
YogaBuddies helps kids relax ~
Visit the YogaBuddies website for a ‘Pose of the Week”. Yoga helps kids learn to recognize signs of stress in themselves and then gives them the tools to help them relax. Perhaps there is a child with whom you can share some yoga!
Kids Yoga Teacher Training
We had a lot of fun at the Kids’ Yoga Teacher Training at the lovely Avenues Yoga in SLC on Saturday. We talked a bit about how to offer yoga to kids, and then we invited some kids to join us so we could see how it works! For more information on kids yoga, visit our website at greentreeyoga.org. Here are some comments from the training. I feel such gratitude that I am able to connect with folks who work with kids and share what I have learned in my 30 years of teaching.
“The services you provide for children in our community is truly inspirational… I also really appreciated you talking about yoga as a safe place- that was really good to be reminded of. ~ JI, SLC
“Honestly, the training was amazing. I don’t wanna just give you useless, complimental fluff, but in all sincerity the training was amazing. I’ve been wanting to volunteer w you guys for a while but I was nervous to work w kids. I’m good w kids cause I’m energetic and love to play, but I didn’t know to incorporate yoga. That was one of the best things that you taught me, being fun and noisy is exactly the point. Also, the ‘safe’ and ‘choice’ principles helped a ton. Just learning that if they don’t want to, that’s fine. I def appreciated your shpeel at the beginning where you incorporated the scientific aspect of yoga. “ – RB, SLC
Many thanks to Avenues Yoga in Salt Lake City for sharing their beautiful site!
How to be a School Volunteer — simple steps
If you are looking for a way to help kids and teachers take a quick stress break, then this book has an entire chapter for you! The new School Volunteer Handbook (click here) not only has a chapter showing you how to do the simple yoga breaks (and you don’t have to know any yoga), it also has an easy to use LittleTREE Yoga CD in the back of the book. Look at sample pages and listen to sample tracks at the website link. Please let us know what you think!
Learn to teach yoga to kids
Do you want to learn how to teach yoga to kids? GreenTREE Yoga is offering an introduction to teaching yoga to kids on October 29th (Alpine, Utah) and November 5th (Salt Lake City) click here. Get social worker CE credits. For teachers, social workers, parents and anyone who works with kids.
YogaKids: Help Kids Relax and Stay Healthy
(click on cover)
Marsha Wenig is a pioneer in kids’ yoga in this country with YogaKids. Her DVD was the first one I did with my kids when they were young. Yoga Journal presents a good article on how yoga can help young kids. Marsha shares some of her insights about teaching kids yoga, including considering yourself a guide and not a teacher. She suggests joining the kids in the learning process. Click here to read more. The importance of joining the kids was brought home to me as I did a kids yoga teacher training for preschool teachers. One teacher’s concern was looking silly in front of 4 year olds. I admit that took me aback at first, but I assured her that the best way to share yoga was to enjoy it and relax as you have fun with the kids. Be open, explore, and smile! ~Yael Calhoun
Yoga at The Children’s Center, Salt Lake City
The Children’s Center offers mental health services and early intervention for preschool aged children with emotional and behavioral problems.
We’ve been doing yoga programs for The Children’s Center preschool classes and training the preschool teachers in the program. Some comments from the teachers:
“I was surprised at how long many of them sat and listened, were able to follow instruction, both verbal and physical.”
‘The kids were engaged, smiling. There was excitement and they felt it was safe activity.”
We are using our donations from the 2011 Yogis Give Back to fund this program! For more info visit our website www.greentreeyoga.org.
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