Body Break - Yoga
When working with children it is so important to implement body breaks/movement breaks. Even if the children don’t seem like they need one, unnecessary challenging behaviours can be prevented through body breaks. Although there are many options for movement/body breaks (e.g. ring around the Rosie, tag, hide and seek etc.), my personal favourite is yoga. Implementing yoga works for group and individual sessions. In the summer during one my placements, a school I was doing therapy at always implemented meditation exercises into their morning announcements. The children would all lay on their back, close their eyes and practice breathing. I loved it and it was amazing to see how effective it was in slowing the children’s bodies down and clearing their minds.
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How to:
Get visuals of various yoga poses (I have found them from Pinterest or Super Duper).
Turn the lights off
Play spa music on your phone
After going through various poses I always end with Shavasana (i.e. laying down on back in complete silence).
Ways to change it up:
For group sessions the children can take turns pretending to be the yoga instructor (e.g. they can knock on the door, come into the room, introduce themselves as the teacher and then teach the other students the pose).
For individual session, the SLP and child can each take turns teaching each other a pose.
On Kids Yoga Stories there are different themed yoga poses (i.e. Halloween, ocean, Christmas etc.). Therefore, change the yoga poses and names of the poses up depending on the theme of your session.
Just think about how amazing you feel after meditating or practicing yoga. Why not introduce these types of self-regulation strategies to children at a young age!
What are your favourite ways to implement body breaks into sessions?
-S
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