Tag Archives: elementary school

yoga and teaching

in almost every teaching environment i’ve been in, i’ve always had my students do yoga. i work with elementary schoolers. so why have them do yoga?

well first, it’s a way for me to connect with my students. after any length of time and discussion, they know i love yoga and go often. by sharing some of who i am as mayah, instead of as their teacher, i can connect with them a little more.

second, it’s good for them. yoga has empowered me. it’s helped me feel safe. it’s helped me heal. i want to pass those skills onto my students. deep breathing (pranayama) and movement (asanas) are beneficial to everyone, espeically children. imagine what the world would be like if we all learned to take a minute and breathe? i’ve found it to be helpful when the kids are restless or just need a mental break. it’s not a coincidence i find yoga to be the most helpful for me then. it’s the magic of yoga!

third, they really like it. after doing it as a class a few times, they want to do more. i’ve had students tell me after things like “When can we do yoga again?” “Let’s do that everyday” “Ms. Mayah my head feels better”.

for yoga with my younger students, i focus solely on breathing. mostly due to space issues (i want to ensure they’re safe- kids are naturally clumsy). also, just breathing is yoga.

sarasota: vacation

so I had an option for what I wanted to do this summer. I could either have had an open house or we could go on vacation. I was really into going to the beach, so I picked going on vacation. I wanted to talk about some aspects of this trip, which I loved.We decided to go to Sarasota, staying in Lido Beach Resort. It was on an island, about 20 minutes away from Sarasota’s airport. I loved the resort and the small town vibe. Though there wasn’t much to do on the island, we got to have a lot of fun going to the beach and just relaxing. I was able to play in the sand and do some great releasing. Going to the beach at 8 am was not only needed, but enjoyable.  Our vacations have never been as relaxing as this one and I feel like we all needed this. We also slept a lot which was really good. My sister’s god-family came to visit us (who live in Florida), which was a lot of fun. We were able to have family time, with our immediate and extended family. Though I’d say I’m borderline fluent in Spanish, I’ve never spoken Spanish to native Spanish speakers. I was able to have the opportunity to speak Spanish and I was very pleased with the result. One of my goals is to create a bilingual elementary school, which I wanted to do in central Florida. This trip just confirmed that not only is the population diverse enough for this to be a great idea, I enjoy the weather. If I had the opportunity I would go back, but I don’t know if I would want to live on the island. I will definitely be returning to Florida though!