Kids Yoga Activities: Spring Time, Balancing Time

Welcome to spring! The sun is finally beginning to warm our cheeks and warm the Earth. Green clover and the first shoots of flowers are popping out of the ground. And chances are, rain will be in the forecast every week!


This week's yoga activity is a fun introduction to this growing season and a chance to improve balance, coordination and creative expression. It is geared towards 2-7 year olds.

Introduce the activity by asking what happens in the spring time. Hopefully you hear the answer or can come up with answer together that new plants, flowers and trees grow in the spring. Tell your child, "Let's pretend we're tree seeds and plant ourselves."

• Squat on the ground in a ball, hugging your knees. Ask your child, "What does a tree need to grow?" 
• If you hear water/rain pat the ground with your hands making the sound of the rain and then begin to slowly "grow" to standing, ending in tree pose. 
• In tree pose you will be balancing on one leg with the other foot resting on the side of your calf. Your arms grow up to the sky.  
• As you are standing in tree pose, ask your child what kind of tree he is to stimulate further creativity.  
• Repeat the growing, starting back as a seed, to balance on the other leg. 

You can repeat the activity with other "plant" poses like flower:

• Begin sitting on the ground, hugging knees to chest as your seed. 
• You might suggest the sun shining down on the seed this time. Raise your arms in an arc over your head, slowly moving them down to the ground as you move your knees open to the ground. 
• Bring the bottoms of your feet together, slide your hands under your ankles with palms face up and until you reach your wrists or elbows. 
• Then as you grow, lift your feet off the ground to balance on your bottom. 
• Once you are balancing in flower ask your child what kind of flower he is. 

For butterfly and bird (eagle) poses, ask your child, "what bugs or animals do we see flying around the flowers and trees?" Allow them to brainstorm different ideas; you can always make up your own poses for them. Then say something like, "Let's pretend to be a butterfly/bird flying around in the fresh spring air."

For butterfly pose:

• Start seated on the ground, open knees and pull the bottoms of your feet together and bring the feet close to your body. 
• Raise your pointer fingers atop your head for antennae, and flap your "wings" by moving your knees.
• As you fly around, ask your child where he is flying to.

If you repeat for bird (eagle) pose this is what it will look like:

• Start standing with feet together. Bend your knees and lift one leg to stack knees on top of each other while balancing on the other foot. If you can, wrap toes around the back of the balancing leg.
• Bring arms out to your sides and flap your "wings."

If you do this activity, share with me how it goes! What other plant, animal or bug poses can you come up with?  Return back to the post to comment or even take pictures (of this week's activity or any week) and email them to me for  post called Kids Yoga Activities: Look What You've Done! that I will be featuring in a few weeks.