YogaKids Helps Kids Combat Stress... and Have Fun Doing It
By Lisa Strandberg
Sept. 20, 2008
In the last couple of years, Sandy Kletti has introduced something new — and very old — to her students in the Appleton Area School District.
Taking a cue from her life outside school, the occupational therapist sought ways to weave the benefits of yoga, a 3,000-year-old practice that she has taught to adults, into education. She found such an approach in YogaKids, an integrated learning program used across the country since 1991.
"I work with children with disabilities, and a lot of the students have difficulty relaxing and have high anxiety," Kletti said. "I thought yoga would be very helpful in helping them focus in school.
"The ultimate goal with YogaKids is to help children bring their bodies and minds into a relaxed state of alertness. If we can help them be relaxed and alert at the same time, they're going to learn more easily. It really does work."
What is YogaKids?
In the West, yoga involves the mindful performance of various physical postures in combination with breathing techniques and self-affirmation. YogaKids takes those elements of yoga and gives them a kid-friendly twist.
"It's an educationally based yoga program for children. It's integrated, playful and developmentally appropriate," Kletti said.
"Lots of times (people) just create a kids' yoga class like an adult class," said Suzy Weyenberg, owner of Appleton Yoga Fusion, a Northland Avenue studio that will offer YogaKids sessions starting on Tuesday. "If an 8-year-old goes to a regular class, and it's an hour of movement, that's not developmentally appropriate."
But imagining you're a dog, lizard or turtle is, according to Shawna Essler, a Johnston Elementary special education and integrated kindergarten teacher who has used YogaKids techniques with her students.
Implementing the Multiple Intelligences Theory of Harvard educator Howard Gardner, YogaKids combines such movement with learning.
"We look at the whole child so we incorporate some reading, music and math concepts, science concepts and language," Kletti said. "By using all these different approaches, we're going to hit something that works well for each child."
Before introducing the program in the Appleton schools, Kletti taught sessions through the Oshkosh park and recreation department and as an after-school program in Kimberly for 12- and 13-year-old girls.
"The girls were amazed at the poses and things they could do," she said.
But the physical accomplishment has a higher aim: to energize the body and mind and to work the kinks out, so to speak, so that children can focus and learn more easily.
How do children benefit?
Holly Tuyls, mom to McKinley Elementary School second-grader Solara Gomez, has been doing yoga herself for 13 years, so she was very receptive to Kletti's inquiry about using YogaKids in her OT interventions with Solara.
"You know that feeling of when you come home at the end of a long day and you can relax? (With yoga) we're essentially helping kids learn how to do that wherever they are — to come back to center — and what a wonderful gift that is," Tuyls said.
"(Yoga) builds their self-confidence. It also helps kids deal with stress in school," Weyenberg said.
In addition, its calming breathing techniques can be applied anywhere at any time.
"Those (adults) that have practiced yoga have a much better understanding of what it does to them personally and how it can help children," Kletti said. "They really have seen improvement in grades, in performance on tests and in reading levels with kids."
Several AASD elementary-level teachers have learned about YogaKids through presentations or one-on-one coaching Kletti has offered and appreciate the results even brief use of YogaKids exercises yields in the classroom: namely, an increased ability to focus.
"There are a lot of kids that don't know how to rest. They don't know how to relax," Essler said, adding that YogaKids helps with that.
"You can just see immediately afterward and for the next hour (the kids) just do a good job. They're putting a lot of energy into these poses. They're difficult at first, but the kids just love it."
Kelli Cross, a kindergarten teacher at McKinley, agrees. "Lately I've got more and more of my kindergarten students coming in and being more active, having a hard time sitting still," she said. "I did my own homework and saw this really makes a difference if you can do it regularly in school."
Tuyls, who is pursuing a degree in English education, said, "There's so much research in education regarding the relaxed brain and body and how much more open they are to learning and making connections with old information. … A relaxed person learns so much more than a person who is under stress."
How is YogaKids used in class?
Because YogaKids is educationally based, Kletti said, it has a lot to offer schools.
"When I provide (OT) intervention with students, I will use a lot of yoga techniques with them. I also go into classrooms and teach teachers to integrate yoga into the school day. I encourage them to use some of the breathing techniques and poses before tests, after recess to calm down or between classes."
"It can be simply if they've been sitting too long, they can stand up and do tree pose (a balance on one foot) on each side and sit back down again," Essler said. She relies on a set of YogaKids cards to illustrate each pose, including several that can be done while seated at a desk.
Cross, too, uses the YogaKids cards and plans to integrate the program in class in a couple of ways.
"I'm going to set my timer once a day, and whenever the timer goes off, we will stop and freeze and do quick exercises with the picture cards," she said.
She also occasionally will satisfy the district-wide "Fit in 15" requirement for teachers to get their students moving for 15 minutes twice per week with YogaKids activities.
Beyond these classroom-based efforts, Kletti said the program provides students with "tools that they can use at any time in their life — before they play a sport, before they fall asleep at night, after they have a disagreement with someone."
As with adults, yoga can help them alleviate stress whenever and wherever they experience it.
Is yoga a religion?
One of the greatest challenges Kletti said she faces in encouraging teachers to use YogaKids methods in the classroom is the notion that yoga is a religious practice. "We do not discuss spirituality or anything to do with religion," Kletti said of the program.
That's something that Tuyls already understood from her own yoga practice.
"Society is slowly learning that you can meditate without being Buddhist," she said. "You can do yoga without it having anything to do with religion."
"As I get teachers and administrators to observe it, they view it differently," Kletti said.
What keeps Kletti motivated to spread the word about YogaKids and its benefits is the impact it has on her students.
"When I see kids telling me how they're taking yoga and using it in their everyday life, I can see it's working."
Sept. 20, 2008
In the last couple of years, Sandy Kletti has introduced something new — and very old — to her students in the Appleton Area School District.
Taking a cue from her life outside school, the occupational therapist sought ways to weave the benefits of yoga, a 3,000-year-old practice that she has taught to adults, into education. She found such an approach in YogaKids, an integrated learning program used across the country since 1991.
"I work with children with disabilities, and a lot of the students have difficulty relaxing and have high anxiety," Kletti said. "I thought yoga would be very helpful in helping them focus in school.
"The ultimate goal with YogaKids is to help children bring their bodies and minds into a relaxed state of alertness. If we can help them be relaxed and alert at the same time, they're going to learn more easily. It really does work."
What is YogaKids?
In the West, yoga involves the mindful performance of various physical postures in combination with breathing techniques and self-affirmation. YogaKids takes those elements of yoga and gives them a kid-friendly twist.
"It's an educationally based yoga program for children. It's integrated, playful and developmentally appropriate," Kletti said.
"Lots of times (people) just create a kids' yoga class like an adult class," said Suzy Weyenberg, owner of Appleton Yoga Fusion, a Northland Avenue studio that will offer YogaKids sessions starting on Tuesday. "If an 8-year-old goes to a regular class, and it's an hour of movement, that's not developmentally appropriate."
But imagining you're a dog, lizard or turtle is, according to Shawna Essler, a Johnston Elementary special education and integrated kindergarten teacher who has used YogaKids techniques with her students.
Implementing the Multiple Intelligences Theory of Harvard educator Howard Gardner, YogaKids combines such movement with learning.
"We look at the whole child so we incorporate some reading, music and math concepts, science concepts and language," Kletti said. "By using all these different approaches, we're going to hit something that works well for each child."
Before introducing the program in the Appleton schools, Kletti taught sessions through the Oshkosh park and recreation department and as an after-school program in Kimberly for 12- and 13-year-old girls.
"The girls were amazed at the poses and things they could do," she said.
But the physical accomplishment has a higher aim: to energize the body and mind and to work the kinks out, so to speak, so that children can focus and learn more easily.
How do children benefit?
Holly Tuyls, mom to McKinley Elementary School second-grader Solara Gomez, has been doing yoga herself for 13 years, so she was very receptive to Kletti's inquiry about using YogaKids in her OT interventions with Solara.
"You know that feeling of when you come home at the end of a long day and you can relax? (With yoga) we're essentially helping kids learn how to do that wherever they are — to come back to center — and what a wonderful gift that is," Tuyls said.
"(Yoga) builds their self-confidence. It also helps kids deal with stress in school," Weyenberg said.
In addition, its calming breathing techniques can be applied anywhere at any time.
"Those (adults) that have practiced yoga have a much better understanding of what it does to them personally and how it can help children," Kletti said. "They really have seen improvement in grades, in performance on tests and in reading levels with kids."
Several AASD elementary-level teachers have learned about YogaKids through presentations or one-on-one coaching Kletti has offered and appreciate the results even brief use of YogaKids exercises yields in the classroom: namely, an increased ability to focus.
"There are a lot of kids that don't know how to rest. They don't know how to relax," Essler said, adding that YogaKids helps with that.
"You can just see immediately afterward and for the next hour (the kids) just do a good job. They're putting a lot of energy into these poses. They're difficult at first, but the kids just love it."
Kelli Cross, a kindergarten teacher at McKinley, agrees. "Lately I've got more and more of my kindergarten students coming in and being more active, having a hard time sitting still," she said. "I did my own homework and saw this really makes a difference if you can do it regularly in school."
Tuyls, who is pursuing a degree in English education, said, "There's so much research in education regarding the relaxed brain and body and how much more open they are to learning and making connections with old information. … A relaxed person learns so much more than a person who is under stress."
How is YogaKids used in class?
Because YogaKids is educationally based, Kletti said, it has a lot to offer schools.
"When I provide (OT) intervention with students, I will use a lot of yoga techniques with them. I also go into classrooms and teach teachers to integrate yoga into the school day. I encourage them to use some of the breathing techniques and poses before tests, after recess to calm down or between classes."
"It can be simply if they've been sitting too long, they can stand up and do tree pose (a balance on one foot) on each side and sit back down again," Essler said. She relies on a set of YogaKids cards to illustrate each pose, including several that can be done while seated at a desk.
Cross, too, uses the YogaKids cards and plans to integrate the program in class in a couple of ways.
"I'm going to set my timer once a day, and whenever the timer goes off, we will stop and freeze and do quick exercises with the picture cards," she said.
She also occasionally will satisfy the district-wide "Fit in 15" requirement for teachers to get their students moving for 15 minutes twice per week with YogaKids activities.
Beyond these classroom-based efforts, Kletti said the program provides students with "tools that they can use at any time in their life — before they play a sport, before they fall asleep at night, after they have a disagreement with someone."
As with adults, yoga can help them alleviate stress whenever and wherever they experience it.
Is yoga a religion?
One of the greatest challenges Kletti said she faces in encouraging teachers to use YogaKids methods in the classroom is the notion that yoga is a religious practice. "We do not discuss spirituality or anything to do with religion," Kletti said of the program.
That's something that Tuyls already understood from her own yoga practice.
"Society is slowly learning that you can meditate without being Buddhist," she said. "You can do yoga without it having anything to do with religion."
"As I get teachers and administrators to observe it, they view it differently," Kletti said.
What keeps Kletti motivated to spread the word about YogaKids and its benefits is the impact it has on her students.
"When I see kids telling me how they're taking yoga and using it in their everyday life, I can see it's working."
