BREATHE, BEND & STRETCH! Yoga And Mindfulness For K - 3rd Grade

Breathe, Bend & Stretch!

Courage and confidence are so important to build and Breathe, Bend & Stretch! jumps into our first episode by learning those qulaities from the animal that personifies them - lions! Learn your first poses; Tree pose, Cat-Cow and Lion pose as you and Bethany search for those elusive cats! 

Journeys and Adventures is our starting point and we will learn how to do the poses safely and correctly while building the strength we need for more advanced poses later in the series!

You will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

This is how we combine fitness with yoga and adventure!

Dolphins are playful, smart and strong! We are so inspired by them as Bethany takes us on an adventure to learn what yoga and dolphins have in common!

Three new poses are introduced for us to learn! Boat Pose, Swimming Pose and Dolphin Pose are demonstrated by Bethany and at the end of the lesson, you can download your first sequence featuring the six poses you have already learned!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then, Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Have a nice swim!

Now that we have learned some poses and built our strength up, we are ready to soar! Join Bethany as she takes you into the sky to find the birds that have inspired Heron Pose, Crow Pose and Eagle Pose!

These poses require balance and strength, and will help to build you self-trust and confidence!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then, Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Fly high as you explore the skies!

Imagine any evening in summertime and you are sure to picture fireflies! It's the perfect setting for an adventure and to start building the core strength you will need for future lessons! 

Bethany will teach us Boat Pose, 30-60-90 Pose, Pyramid Pose, Easy Sitting Pose and Firefly Pose! And at the end of the lesson you will be able to download your next sequence that you can practice anytime!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Shine like a firefly!

Mountains have the strongeest foundations and Mountain Explorer is your chance to build a really strong foundation for your practice! 

This is our fifth lesson and you've already learned fifteen poses! That's a great start! Now you will learn four more that will help with everything you have already learned, and all of the poses that are coming up!

Bethany will teach us Bear Pose, Rabbit Pose, Cat Pose and Mountain Pose!

And as always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Be strong and steady, just like a mountain!

Why do Crocodiles smile so big? Because they know that there is always another way to accomplish something! Bethany will teach us Frog Pose and Crocodile Pose, and how to do them both in a few different ways!

Learning how to do things in mutliple ways is just as important in life as it is in yoga, and is a sure path to getting where you want to go!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Big smiles!

Just as there are many animals on a farm, there are many basic poses that Bethany can't wait to teach you! 

Fun At The Farm will include Cat Pose, Cow Pose, Down Dog, Triangle, Half Moon, Horse Pose and Rooster Pose! That's a lot! But at the end of this episode you will know how to do all of these poses, and that brings your yoga practice up to 30 poses! Wow!!

And, you can download your third sequence that you can practice anytime now that you know how to do these poses!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

It's time to have fun!

It's Raining Cats And Dogs is all about our perspective and understanding why things happen the way that they do! Even when it's raining, we can still have fun and the rain is good in so many ways!

Bethany focuses on some fundamental poses in this episode, teaching you Puppy Pose, Cat Pose, Down Dog and Tiger Pose. 

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Learn a new way to view things and enjoy the rain!

The rainforest can get really warm and it reminds us to warm up before we do things! Bethany teaches some new poses along with practicing some poses we have already learned, all to teach the importance of warming up and to begin learning some more advanced poses!

We will learn Monkey Pose, Gorilla Pose, Butterfly Pose, Down Dog, Seperate Leg Forward Fold and Mountain Pose! Some of these are a little more advanced and you're ready for them!

And at the end, you can download your next sequence to practice any time!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

This expedition is go!

Circus performers are the very picture of strength, balance and endurance, and many of them practice yoga to build these qualities!

In The Circus Is In Town, Bethany will teach Chair Pose, Horse Pose, Tiger Pose and Dancer's Pose to help build your strength and balance!

Take your time and be strong as you practice! And as always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Get ready for your best performance!

The Sun, The Moon and The Stars is where you learn Sun Salutations! You've heard of them, and now Bethany teaches you exactly how to do them, along with other complimentary poses that you've already learned.

A Sun Salutation is a combination of poses, moving together to form what we call a Vinyasa, or a flow of poses. These are a favorite in every studio and a building block to a great practice!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then, Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Take your practice to the sun, moon and stars!

We've been on twelve Journeys & Adventures and now it's time to learn some more advanced poses before we move on to our next section, Energy & Emotions!

In Destination Desert, Bethany teaches us how to do Camel Pose, Lizard Pose, Horse Pose, Scorpion Pose, Snake Pose and Sun Salutations! With a focus on spine strength, Bethany will combine these poses into your next amazing sequence that you can practice on your own!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step by step as she demonstrates. 

Have a great adventure and get ready to take your practice to the next level with Energy and Emotions!

Our Energy & Emotions series is all about our emotions and how yoga can work with them. Energy Wheels is where Bethany teaches us how to recognize what emotions we are feeling in our yoga poses!

She will teach Active Child's Pose, Cat-Cows, Cobra Pose, Down Dog, Wheel Pose and Reclined Bound Angle Pose. 

You are really developing your practice now, and it can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time! This is when it can be very helpful to know what poses to practice to help you! Do you need to build some confidence? You know how to do that! What about core strength? You know how to do that too! You're doing great and things are only going to get better!

As always, you will begin with setting up your space and getting the things you will need to practice. Then Bethany will walk you through the poses step-by-step as she demonstrates. 

Let those emotions out and learn how yoga can help you with all of them!

Rainbows & Butterflies is where Bethany introduces the Chakras and it's one big, bright episode!

The Chakra system is thousands of years old and it's how philosophers used to explain energy focal points in our bodies! An energy focal point is where we feel certain types of energy, like when you love something in your heart!

Each Chakra has a color associated with it, and Bethany will teach a pose for each one! She will teach Easy Sitting Pase for the color red, Boat Pose for Orange, Cat-Cow pose for yellow, Crescent Lunnge With An Open Heart for green, Bridge Pose for blue, Active Child's Pose for purple and Tip Toe Pose for white!

And as alwyas, Bethany explains everything step-by-step!

Pick your favorite color!

We feel a lot of emotions and Oceans of emotions is where Bethany teaches us how we can often deal with these with the right poses! 

She'll teach Thunderbolt Pose, Double Saddle Pose, Forward Bend and Resting Pose, which are all new poses to add to your practice!

This overview of how to handle emotions with your poses will come in handy as we focus on specific emotions in the coming episodes! 

Emotions can rush over us and overwhelm anybody! Sometimes we have too much energy and othr times we are just stressed! But your yoga practice can be the best way to deal with these emotions so that you can calm down, think more clearly and feel better!

In Energy Rush, Bethany teaches us four poses that are great to deal with these situations! Active Child's Pose, Half Pigeon, Double Pigoen and Easy Sitting Pose are all great for dealing with those rushes of energy!

Find the calm in the storm!

In Inspiration Station, we will find that place within ourselves where we see ourselves in a positive way! And one of the ways we can do that in yoga is by succeeding in getting into poses correctly. Sometimes, to do that, we need to use props to help us support those places where we need more flexibility or resistance. In the studio we use blocks, but books work just as well! And straps can be replaced by belts! There's always something that we can use to help us into poses and that's a very positive thing!

In yoga, trusting yourself and your instincts is an important part of th epractice! Knowing when to not push it is as important as knowing when you can go a little further, and developing this trust within yourself is something you can carry into daily life!

Bethay will teach Active Child's Pose, Forward Bend, Open Hearted Warrior and Crecent Lunge, all of which are great poses to practice when developing self trust! Practice along with the attached sequence to help develop your ability!

Facing Fear is an important skill for all of us to learn! At some point we are all afraid and we all have anxiety! But yoga is here to help us recognize and overcome these things!

Bethany will guide us through Crescent Lunge, Plank Pose, Side Plank Pose, Actice Child's Pose and Down Dog as we learn to calm down and think clearly, even when we are afraid! Practice the attached sequence to help when you feel this way!

Take Your Time is something that you hear a lot of people say, but it's so hard sometimes! Good thing your yoga practice can help with that! Developing patience is a skill that will help you in every aspect of your life and your practice is the perfect place to learn it!

Bethany teaches Triangle Pose, Side Angle Pose, Warrior I and Pyramid Pose as she describes how important it is to take your time in the poses and in all aspects of life!

Try, Try Again means more than to keep doing the same thing over and over! It means to recognize our mistakes, and we all make those! But that's okay! We just need to learn how to correct them and to keep focusing on how to make them better!

Bethany guides us through three poses that can be tricky and everybody needs to practice these a lot before they are good at them! Dancer's Pose, Tree Pose and Twisted Chair Pose are all great examples of how important it is to try, try again!

Sometimes We're Sad is all about recognizing and dealing with sadness. We all feel sad sometimes, and that's a natural way to feel because some things are sad and that's okay. But we can also do certain poses to help make ourselves feel better, and these are in the attached sequence!

Bethany guides us through Triangle Pose, Half Moon Pose, Pyramid Pose and Resting Pose as we learn to acknowledge to ourselves that being sad is okay, and that we can deal with it.

The Frusration Trap is right in front of you! Don't fall into it! But if you do, it's okay because that happens to all of us. But keeping the right persepctive and helping ourselves to calm down and feel better with poses can make a big difference!

Bethany teaches us Down Dog, Goddess Pose, Peaceful Warrior and a Supine Twist, all designed to help us recognize why we are frustrated and to help overcome it! A new sequence is attached to practice! 

You Are Strong is the best way to describe everything you have learned and practiced so far! You have developed physical strength, emotional insight and new perspectives, all of which make you strong!

Bethany teaches us the Warrior Poses, I, II and III, along with Hold The Big Toe Pose.

We can do these poses now, because we're strong!

It sounds easy, but it takes a great deal of focus to learn how to breathe in your yoga practice! When you learn how to do balanced breathing and use your breath to your benefit, your yoga practice and the way you feel, will improve a lot! Bethany introduces us to our first breath work in Balanced Breathing!

Find a nice quiet spot to practice this work and enjoy the calming influence that this work can have on your practice!

The saying goes that slow and steady wins the race and Turtle Time is about doing just that! Once we get into poses with variations, we need to take a little longer to do them correctly. It might take a little more work and a alittle more time, but it's always worth it! Bethany guides us through Warrior II, Pyramid Pose with an Interlace Grip, Cobra Pose, Seated Head To Knee Pose and Tortoise Pose! 

Take your time in these poses, trust in the process and you will win every time! 

We breathe without thinking about it all the time, but something special happens when we breathe a certain way! In Criss Cross Applesauce, Bethany teaches us the Ujjayi Breathing technique and we can us this anytime to help us calm down, focus our concentration and put our energy toward specific goals!

A special sequence is attached for you to practice this breathing style! 

We hear people say to take a deep breath all of the time, and now you know how to really make that count!

Concentration On Meditation is our first step towards meditating! Meditation is an ancient practice that people have always used to clear their minds of distracting thoughts, to relieve tension and stress and to be able to focus on things that they wish to by removing those pesky thoughts that are always buzzing around in our minds! 

Bethany exaplins and guides us through our meditation, and when you are done you will feel more relaxed and focused!

We have learned how to meditate, but what do we do if we are in a car or at school and there isn't a quiet spot to meditate in? Well, we can always Be Still & Chill! This is a simple way to take a moment and recognize the thoughts that are in your head right now! Let them be as you sit with them, and you will begin to recognize things that you were too distracted to notice before! 

This is an amazing way to focus on what is important to you and to let go of the things that are not!

Having a perspective of the bigger picture is where all of your hard work pays off! Right now you should be very proud of everything you have accomplished, and it will always be there for you!

Your poses keep you strong and the lessons they teach will last a lifetime! Minding your emotions will let you always be able to find that calm, cool way forward. And beathing and meditation will always let you go deeper into being mindful, to let you concentrate and recharge!

You have all of these qualities within you now and you can use them anytime in your daily life, especially when you need to solve puzzles!

Your final sequence is attached, so you can finish putting together your book and you can do them whenever you like to keep getting better!

Stay strong and know that yoga will always be there for you! 

Bethany