Summer Sun Yoga

As we near the longest day of the year, and really my absolute FAVORITE time of the year, I love to create a class that will bring these concepts to the kids. I love how it is still light out at 8:30pm but also struggle with Zephyr still being up at 10:00pm because well, it is almost summer right? We love staying outside playing in the yard or the park as long as possible. 





I did a really cute sequence with the preschoolers last week to celebrate the sun, summer and the longest day of the year. We love thinking about our favorite summer activities. Here is a great little sequence to celebrate SUMMER SUNSHINE!!

Summer Sun Yoga 

1) suns! - as you all know by now, I love using paper sunshines. We talk about what season we are about to start and how the days are getting longer and longer until the first day of summer which will be the longest day of the year. We use the suns to warm up all our body parts.

2) sun salutation - I do my own kid variations of Surya Namaskar (sanscrit for Sun Salutation)  It includes as follows: 

 crescent lunge on both sides (hop switch feet in between)

                           plank

downward dog

mountain

warrior 1 - which includes the affirmation "I am brave!"

warrior 2 - which includes the affirmation "I am strong!"

peaceful warrior - which includes the affirmation "I am peaceful!"

triangle -

which includes the affirmation "I am flexible!"

After our sun salutations, I asked the kids to think about their favorite outdoor activity. I shared that mine is eating outside!

3) chair pose - we pretended to eat our favorite foods outside




4) basket - basket of sun! we put our sunshines into our baskets.

5) swimming - lots of the kids say their favorite summer activity is to swim. On our bellies, we lift our arms and legs straight up and down to swim!

Depending on time, you can find out all the fun activities the kids like to do from riding a bike, to going to the beach, park, hiking, etc. All of these can become part of the yoga class.

6) relaxation - we imagine we are in our favorite outdoor summer spot, relaxing. We listen to the sounds around us, and relax each body part from our toes up to our head. The sun warms each of our body parts to help us to relax even more.

Bambino Yoga also has some great ideas for summer yoga & sun salutations here.

So many summer yoga ideas & links here at Kids Yoga Stories.

What do you like to do in the summer? What kinds of yoga poses can you incorporate for a summer yoga class?