Cosmic Yoga

Cosmic Kids Yoga is a YouTube instructional video series of how to do yoga for ages around 3 to 12. About 5 years ago when I was teaching Physical Education for a really small school I came across this fantastic series as I was looking for resources and ideas for gym classes; especially because I was teaching mixed grades, I needed to find something that students at all different abilities could do with their age differences. These videos did exactly what I was hoping for. The students I had in my mixed grade level gym class first and foremost just loved the videos, and the energy the host has. They especially loved her Australian accent. This was an extremely important start because how often do we as educators think we have hit the jackpot with an idea of ours or resource we found and it turns out to be a complete bust with the kids? As a result of the students being engaged with the videos they were super motivated to give each video a try.

Over the years videos have been slowly added from ones that introduce what they are all about to simply just jumping into a yoga video and going through the movements. These videos typically range around 20 minutes.  I found this to be really good as it gave you time to introduce and discuss what the video is about before starting it and still have time at the end to discuss the video and the poses the students did.

What I especially like about the videos is the consistency from video to video so students know what to expect once they have done a few. The instructions are very easy to follow and there is a great range of poses for students to do so it really fits all skill levels. However, with that being said it is quite apparent that having fun and trying new things is a key theme and that even if students are having difficulty they still feel good about themselves for having tried in the first place.

If you’re a gym teacher with very little experience in yoga or don’t know where to begin these videos can be be a great starting point for a unit in yoga. You will just need a screen to display it on. If you’re a classroom teacher or home schooler perhaps you need to get your kids moving these videos are also great for that and you don’t have to do the full 20 minutes either you can just do a little bit. Furthermore as you become more familiarized with the videos you can start running through the poses with the class without the aid of the videos and  create you own little mini yoga sessions as well.

Overall, you really can’t go wrong even just giving these videos a try. It’s a free resource at your finger tips and ultimately if you’re ever in a pinch and need something to do to fill in the time, or you’re covering someone’s class run out of materials left behind these videos can quite easily make up that time.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga