For the school year 2011-2012 the team of educators in the nursery Ambarabà has decided to offer children a path of yoga.
The initiative was launched following the proposal of Loretta to develop an experimental path inherent in this discipline with very young children.
The course has been offered to all children in the nursery, taking into account their potential, skills related to age. The group ranged from 15 to 31 months.
No child was forced to participate or be present for the entire duration of the meeting, everyone was able to choose how and when to participate.
The group that participated in all the meetings was full of enthusiasm, attention has even arrived in 40 minutes, which is very difficult for very young children!
They quickly learned the story, the locations, the dynamics of lessons talking about them to their parents or during a chat with educators in the days following the meeting. They learned very quickly the parts of the body and the meaning of relaxation or “breath of wind” as a means to calm down.
In conclusion it can be said that yoga with very young children is an important and special tool that allow them to get in touch with new management practices of their body, their own experiences. In addition, some practices are becoming part of the dynamics and routine of the nest on a daily basis, such as “the breath of the wind” that educators use to help children calm relaxing, or the knowledge of the parts of the body through massage the “cream of the angels becomes light.”
Educational team Micronido Ambarabà – 2012
In October 2011 I participated at the workshop to teach yoga to children with Loretta and I had amazing time. We were a little more than 10 participants and we had a lot of fun. The stage was very practical, Loretta was able to give us many tips for working with children from 4 years old and has responded accurately and on time to all of our questions and concerns.
For two days we played, danced, made positions, listened stories and so on and so forth and I must say that I came home with a nice amount of experience on Yoga for children.
I recommend it to everyone: Yoga teachers, educators, but also parents who want to offer something new, useful and educational for their children.
Sabrina Fantini – 2011
I am a professor of special school, usually I deal with students with learning disabilities. I have been passionate about yoga in the last few years and I started to practice regularly.
After following the training days with Loretta in 2010, I decided to take what I have experienced in school and offer this experience to some students in my class and a group of students of the second grade.
Thanks to the collaboration of the lecturer and open-mindedness necessary to accommodate this type of project we were able to put together a journey of about 20 classes. Each of the meetings lasted for about two teaching units on a fortnightly basis.
The first part of the meetings is served to introduce the rules, establish rituals and allow children to become familiar with this way of working. During all the meetings we have always tried to maintain the same structure so as to find the children in each of the reference points to help them to enter an activity.
In the first part we used various proposals shown by Loretta during the workshop: games, management circle, brief moments of viewing. We completed ahead of adding other pieces caught here and there or simply following the inspiration and direction from the path.
The second part of the course was focused on the kit YogAmico. This material has given way to build a metaphor for travelling with children and to divide the entire game in many sequences, each of which has been a lesson.
Thanks to this process we have seen a positive development in children, greater openness to the group, the greater the ability to listen, an increased expression of their wishes and needs and your mood. Some children very closed at the beginning of the route as they managed to find the strength to open up to the group if not with words by the creativity that always concluded each meeting.
Within the group, the students in my class were well received and considered by the children of the second grade and it was nice to be able to observe the onset of increased sensitivity and consideration for these children with disabilities. Within these moments my students were part of a group and we often “forget” them because they were mixed very well among the other children.
It was very nice to see all this and then suggest a space and a time in which to express themselves freely.
Agata Manfrina – 2010
The children were interested and many of them showed good attention, self-control and relaxation and all the goals were attained. This was driven by a serene and relaxed created during meetings thanks to the skill of the operator and the adequacy of tools proposed.
Children with disabilities have responded positively to the proposals, including the child with autism has shown great interest in yoga and followed all the way.
The teachers of kindergarten Cerete (BG) – 2010