Archive for the ‘Kids’ Category

15 original songs, rockin’ yoga music for kids for tons of yoga fun!

Folksy, rockin’, funky and fun, Come Play Yoga! features an eclectic mix of musical styles, including rock, reggae, disco, country, new age, and rhythmic chanting.

Kids can practice yoga along with popular songs from the popular classes at Karma Kids Yoga, or they can just chill out and enjoy the yoga groove. Each track playfully aims to inspire confidence, strength, imagination, and inner-peace, as well as bring a smile to your child’s yoga practice.

Looking for something different to do with the family this summer? How would you like to combine travel, education as well as yoga… for the entire family?

World Family Yoga offers family yoga retreats that allow parents a rejuvenating and uplifting Anusara Yoga® practice accessible to all levels of experience, while the children join together for a playful and insightful yoga session with their new friends.

The founders, Christine McArdle-Oquendo and Peggy Profant, bring extensive histories in education of varying methodologies as well as a love of yoga.  With their programs they provide families with unique destinations and experiences creating memories as well as healthy bodies, spirits and minds, to last a lifetime.

The programs are designed to integrate the wonders of travel, as well as educational experiences for the children with invigorating, relaxing yoga for all, providing the foundation for the trip.

An example of a truly unique family experience upcoming:

Sacred Valley, Peru
A Magical Family Vacation

August 7 – 18, 2009

Visit Incan ruins including Machu Picchu, Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Saksaywaman. Learn about Andean cosmology, join in sacred, traditional offering ceremonies with Andean healers, enjoy Andean markets, and daily yoga classes. All of this and more with new friends of like mind and heart.

If you’re looking for something a little different this summer, where good health, mental, spiritual and physical, is the focus, consider World Family Yoga.

Be sure to visit for more information on their unique vision and programs.

Babies and toddlers are wonderful examples of the miracle of the human body and it’s capabilities…. or at least, what it might have been capable of once upon a time!

When learning how to crawl, they will arch their torsos up into “Cobra”.  And just before they can walk, they will spend weeks crossing rooms in “Down Dog”.  Even while sleeping, they will unconsciously tuck into the aptly named “Baby Pose”.

As a photographer myself, I can’t imagine the time and patience that went into each and every image… babies aren’t known for doing what their told, after all.

Noticing that a baby naturally performs Yoga is one thing; getting these poses to occur in front of a camera is another story. The photographs that compose this book are captured moments, natural and candid fractions of a second where the lighting, expression and pose all come together. For most of the images, these poses and moves were completely spontaneous, the only staged elements being the placement of the baby or child and yoga mat in the proper light.

It doesn’t get much cuter than this!!  Between the wonderfully fun and engaging images and the inspirational text, Born Yogis is the perfect addition to any yoga family’s library.

Wanting to introduce your tiny tots to yoga? Wai Lana, one of the originals in bringing yoga to the mainstream… you’ve seen her, I know.

The beautiful woman, often balancing precariously on a rock overlooking the sea. Known as much for her long, black hair and flowers strewn about her head, as for her peaceful, picturesque locales.

Who better to inspire our little ones?

In Wai Lana’s Little Yogis™
Fun Exercise Book,  how far can a grasshopper jump?  Where does oxygen come from?

With the Fun Exercise book, your kids will learn, laugh, and experience the wonderful benefits of yoga’s most playful poses. The whole family will love the hilarious characters, charming illustrations, and fun-filled activities.

Filled with secret waterfalls, pink elephants, silly monkeys, and rainbow butterflies, Wai Lana’s Fun Exercise captures the imagination while helping your kids grow strong, flexible, and focused.

It’s the perfect companion to her Little Yogis™ DVDs and CDs.

If you’d like it all-in-one, check out the full Fun Exercise Kit: Wai Lana’s Little Yogis.

• All kinds of fun exercises for strong bodies and sound minds
• Educational and entertaining
• Stimulates physical, mental, and emotional development
• 64 colorful pages, 11”x8”, hardbound

According to scientists, if you see the dancer turning clockwise, you’re operating more dominantly from the right-brain… left-brain if she’s turning counter-clockwise.  Supposedly, if you stare at her foot and its shadow, you can actually turn her in the other direction.  Ummmm… OK… yes, but now I have a headache….

To summarize the characteristics of each…

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS:  uses logic, detail oriented, facts rule, words and language, present and past, math and science, comprehension and knowing, order/pattern perception, reality based, forms strategies, practical, safe;

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS: uses feeling, “big picture” oriented, imagination rules, symbols and images, present and future, philosophy & religion, can “get it” (i.e. meaning), believes, appreciates, spatial perception, knows object function, fantasy based, presents possibilities, impetuous and risk taking.

The bottom line is we need both to function.  But sometimes… say, when you’re trying something new, or wanting to accomplish a work of some creativity… or perhaps just needing to get through a yoga practice with a shred of self-esteem (ahem!), it’s nice to just turn off that left side… that pesky and insistent part of your head that continuously reminds you how ridiculously bad you are at whatever you are doing.  Sometimes it’s important- no, essential-  to just go with the flow and allow the freedom of imagination, fantasy and creativity, the right- brain, to take hold.

Not an easy task.  However, as I found during my last practice, it’s possible…

Read the rest of this entry »

Manifesting goodness, positivity and empowerment can be difficult for adults these days… let alone the children in our lives who experience our stress and anxiety on an entirely different level.

These wonderful Manifest Your Magnificence Cards from Blue Skies Yoga & EcoStore may be just the thing to introduce and reinforce important messages as well as remind children- and parents, too- that they are Magnificent Creations.

Once the child picks a card, you can reinforce the power of the affirmation by having the child express how it relates to them by:
1.  Writing, talking, drawing;
2.  Singing, acting, dancing;
3. Carrying a card with them as a reminder of who they truly are.

Each set contains 64 full colour cards, with gloss lamination to ensure high quality and durability.  All cards are packed in a beautiful full colour hi-gloss gift box to keep cards within reach and organized whether as a game or for those important teachable moments!

If we had a neighbor like Stillwater…

A certain favourite among my kids, ranging in age from 4 to 10, and for me as well.  I love reading this to my gang, as much for them as for myself.

Gentle little reminders, shall we say, beautifully illustrated, with regards to generosity, forgiveness, and what defines good fortune.

Stillwater, a new neighbor to three children, gets to know them one by one, by way of a traditional zen story, addressing complex themes simply, accessibly, in a wonderfully zen sort of way.

While my four-year-old may not quite grasp the deeper philosophical undertones, she is entirely engaged by the soothing watercolours and the characters themselves.  The stories told by Stillwater to his young visitors, are each relevant to their individual circumstances and presented in dramatic japanese artwork, offering comical animal characters, lending a wonderful distinction between the magical, serene of the watercolour scenes and Stillwater’s three tales.

Zen Shorts is a unique and wonderful addition to any children’s library and so cleverly introduces the ageless philosophy to our young ones.  I certainly couldn’t have taken it on quite so effectively!