"Peaceful Piggies" Yoga Characters

"Peaceful Piggy" Flann

 The kindergarten and pre-k classes did in fact enjoy the masks. They were a little too big, but we rolled with it. The kids thought they were silly and fun. I would read them a page from the book Peaceful Piggy Yoga by Kerry Lee Maclean (also in book recommendations!), then talk about the peaceful piggy in the illustration. I brought different props to go along with each piggy character. Two students would come up and become those "peaceful piggies" and demonstrate the pose for the class. The format worked really great, especially for the smaller pre-k group. For the larger kindergarten class,  we only had time for half of the book; I will do the second half of the book during our next class.

I brought back the ukulele and did Yoga Freeze Dance for our dance party. I encouraged the students to incorporate movements of the different characters and poses we had explored in the book. The end of class dance party varies each week. Sometimes we freestyle, sometimes we freeze dance with special poses, sometimes we play Magic Soup. The rules of the dance party may change, but I always leave time for the dance party; it wouldn't be story story dance without it!

I have not yet done peaceful piggies with the preschoolers. I think the format will have to be a little different and more contained. I think I will leave out the masks, but use the character props, and have everyone pretend to be peaceful piggies. I am pretty sure this group will be able to get into piggy character without the assistance of a mask. I'm still exploring ideas for this one.

I am also looking forward to the second half of Peaceful Piggies with the pre-k and kindergarten. They all seemed to enjoy taking turns being different characters and getting-up in front of the group.

"Peaceful Piggy" Jack in Tree Pose