Tapestry of Faith: Faithful Journeys: A Program about Pilgrimages of Faith in Action for Grades 2-3

Faith In Action: Teaching

Activity time: 20 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Yoga mats, small rugs or a carpeted space large enough for all participants
  • A copy of Leader Resource 1, Yoga Pose, and other yoga pose notes/illustrations, as needed

Preparation for Activity

  • Participants must be familiar with yoga poses used in Activity 2, Move It! Yoga.
  • Arrange for the children in the group to teach yoga poses for about 10 minutes to another group of children in your RE program, from a day care center or at a multigenerational congregational social gathering.

Description of Activity

By serving as teachers, the children experience our third Principle another way, expressing the acceptance and encouragement rather than receiving it.

Ask the children to think about the yoga poses they learned during the Move It! activity. How would they go about teaching those poses to other children? How could they convey the relaxation and the stretching of body, mind, and spirit that yoga poses can help children achieve? Would they model the poses? Explain them verbally? Put their hands on the other children to show how their bodies should move?

Organize the children's ideas about how to conduct the teaching. Who would like to talk, who would like to demonstrate, and who would like to help individuals try poses?

Remind the children that they are not teaching only yoga poses. As teachers, they are also affirming acceptance of their students and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Then, bring them to the other group of children.

It is recommended that you regather to process the experience. You might ask:

  • Did you find it easy to encourage other children, or did you get frustrated at times?
  • What happened when someone did not follow your instructions, or didn't do a yoga pose the way you thought it should be done?
  • Did anyone get asked questions about yoga, the poses, or what yoga is for? What was that like?
  • How do you think learning yoga from our group might have helped the other children's spiritual growth?
  • I wonder, what might you want to do differently if you were going to teach yoga to other children again?

Including All Participants

Some children may not be comfortable speaking or demonstrating yoga poses before a group. Some children can model the poses among the group of learners or help them try poses, while others stand in front to lead.