Grounded Kids Mini Pose Cards, round pose cards with yoga pose drawings, arranged in a circle around their tube on a yoga mat

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A Zensational Memory Game

Grounded Kids Mini Pose Cards, round pose cards with yoga pose drawings, arranged in a circle around their tube on a yoga matYoga has become a great way for children of ALL abilities to become aware of their body, in line with their breath, and connected to the beautiful truth and peace within them.  As an occupational therapist and devoted yogi, Allison Morgan of Zensational Kids (see www.zensationalkids.com) offers up a joyful and mindful way to facilatate learning yoga with mini pose cards.

The Elevator Series Mini Pose Cards help provide a fun, interactive game atmosphere that facilitates learning in a natural and enriching way. Here are a few ideas of how to use these cards in a group or individually to help develop visual and motor skills, motor planning, body awareness and most importantly, laughter.

MEMORY for you and a child

  1. Start with 3 cards, face up. Have the child look at all the cards and go over what each pose is. This can be done either verbally (saying the name of each pose), or motorically (making your body into each pose).
  2. Turn the cards face down. You can test your memory now, or do something else for a few minutes and come back to the cards.
  3. OK, do you remember what poses were on the cards? If you can’t say them, do them. As the child remembers the cards, turn them over to reveal the pictures. If they can’t remember the poses, you do one of them, and see if they remember the name of the pose.
  4. Do you remember the order the cards were in?
  5. OK, once you master 3 cards, try some more.

MEMORY for a group of children

  1. Start with one card per student. All the children see the cards, say the names of the poses, or do the poses. You will see that their memory is enhanced if they can say them and do them. This demonstrates the power of our body and how important it is in our learning process.
  2. Now count to 5. Everyone STRIKE A POSE. This allows the children to do anything that they remember.
  3. As a group, can they decide what pose is missing? Can they remember any of the missing poses that no one in the group formed? Can they put the poses in the same order that the cards were in?
  4. This is also fun to play with a big group, with a little challenge. Divide the students up into groups of 3, 4, or 5. Every group gets the same number of cards. If each group has 3 students, they get 3 cards, 4 students, 4 cards, etc…. See which TEAM can remember all of their cards and form the sequence with their bodies.

More to Explore

  • Yes To Higher Aim…No To Lame

    Say Yes to Brightness,
    To Certainty, To Health
    Say no to dullness,
    To doubt, to filth.
    Say Yes to Careful,
    To Enthusiasm, to Aim
    Say no to Careless,
    To Backsliding, to Lame.
    Say yes to activity,
    To Attention, To humility.
    Say no to Heedless,
    Inertia, Instability.
    How to say NO
    To such 9 Disturbances?
    Create a “no” prop
    To play interference.
    A block will work wonders
    To impede interruptions.
    Place between your hands
    To help with deductions.
    Press your hands in
    To fire your inner shoulders.
    Breathe your arms up
    And become a beholder.
    Keep pressing in
    To activate what’s dull.
    Reach the block up high
    As well as your skull.
    Hold a block in one hand
    Lift up your opposite knee
    Tilt to block side
    Finding freedom is key.
    Place the “no” block
    Right between your thighs.
    I know it is awkward
    May your enthusiasm rise!
    Press your thighs back
    Keep your shins fixed.
    Fold Forward, touch the floor
    Breathe steady while betwixt.
    Step back into Downward Dog,
    Bend your knees a lot.
    Press your block up and back
    Notice your train of thought!
    Shift forward into plank
    Lower down flat like a pancake.
    Keep shins pressing down
    Lift thighs up with a mandate.
    Stretch your belly and heart forward,
    Hips back toward your toes
    Open your shoulders
    Like a polyphonic prose.
    Press back to Down Dog
    Come down to table.
    Remove your block
    Keep hands and shins stable.
    Prepare to find freedom
    With boundaries no less.
    In this grounded pose
    We call “No Table Yes”.
    As you stretch right leg back
    Exhale Yes to Higher Aim.
    As you bring knee to forehead
    Inhale No to Lame.
    Your spine arches and curves
    As you continue 5 times
    Try it fast, Try it slow
    Switch sides
    Cause it’s prime.
    Sit is easy pose
    Tune into your frame.
    Each inhale in
    Think Yes to high aim.
    Each exhale out
    Think No to Lame
    May this help you
    Up your game.