(cheerful music) - Hi everybody, and welcome back to Room Nine, our region's largest classroom.

My name is Mrs. St. Louis, and I'm a teacher at Rogers Elementary School in the Mehlville school district, and we are located in South St. Louis County.

Today, I'm here to teach a movement lesson that's geared toward students of all ages, so, let's get ready to get moving!

Now, any time we do any type of movement, we wanna warm up our bodies and get them ready, so that way we don't pull any muscles or cause any injuries.

So, we're gonna stretch our bodies from our head to our toes.

So let's start at the top.

We're gonna begin by shaking our head yes.

We're gonna bring our chin to our chest, and then lift our chin back up to the ceiling, going back and forth.

When we do this, we wanna do this slow and controlled, making sure that we're taking care of our neck.

If we move too fast, we could injure our neck.

Now let's stop, and we will go side to side.

So now I'm gonna take my chin, and I'm going to bring it to my shoulder, and switch bringing my chin to my other shoulder, side to side.

Again, going slow and with control so I keep my neck safe.

Now let's do another version of side to side.

I'm gonna take my ear and bring it as close to my elbow as possible.

Now I'm not gonna lift my elbow up to meet it.

I'm gonna keep my elbow nice and calm, just tilting my head.

Now I'm gonna bring my other ear to my other shoulder.

And I'll go back and forth, still going nice and slow, keeping control.

Very good!

Let's move on to our shoulders.

Now, we're gonna do some shoulder obstructs, so I'm going to lift my shoulders up, and bring them down.

Keep your head still!

Lift your shoulders up, and bring them down.

I'm trying to move my shoulders so that they touch my ears.

They reach close, but not quite, bring them down.

Let's do two more.

Up, and down, and up, and down.

Very good.

Let's do some scissors with our arms.

I'm gonna bring them out, crossing my arms in front, and back.

Crossing, and back.

Crossing, and out.

We can speed this up a little bit.

We still want to have control over our movements, so I'm not going so fast that my hands are smacking into each other in the middle.

I still wanna have control and know where my body is going.

Very good!

Let's move our arms up to the side, and we're gonna make tiny circles with our hands.

I'm gonna bring my hands to the front, bring them down, to the back, and to the top.

Front, down, back, top.

And I can speed this up a little bit.

Now with these arm circles, go at your own pace.

If you're still learning front, down, back, top, and you need to say it as you go, that's okay!

The more we practice, the better we'll get at our arm circles.

If you're ready, you can speed them up.

Very good.

All right, you starting to feel that burn in your shoulders a little bit?

Me too, so let's stretch those out.

I'm gonna take one arm, and I'm gonna bring it across my chest, keeping it straight.

I'm gonna use my other hand to hold onto my elbow, and just gently hug my arm to my chest.

You'll feel a little bit of a pull here as we're stretching these muscles out.

Now if it hurts in any way, stop, and release a little bit.

When we stretch, we don't want to cause any pain, so if anything's ever hurting you, that's the time to stop.

If you can feel your muscles working, that means it's doing its job, but we never want to cause any pain.

Now let's switch.

I'm gonna take my other arm, bring it across my chest, bringing my hand to hold onto my elbow, and just gently hugging that arm to my chest.

I wanna feel my muscles stretching, but I don't want to cause any pain.

Very good, and let's wiggle it up.

We're gonna move on to our core, or our trunk.

That's the center of our body, the part that holds us up.

So, I'm gonna start by putting my hands on my hips, and I'm going to tip side to side, almost like I'm trying to make my elbow touch the floor!

But I can't move my feet, I want my feet to stay flat on the floor.

Side to side.

Very good.

Again, I'm going slow and controlled, taking my time is I go side to side.

Very good.

Now I'm gonna stretch forwards, and backwards.

Forwards, and backwards.

I'm gonna turn to the side to show you forwards, as far as you can, and backwards, as far as you can.

Going slow and controlled.

Very good.

All right, let's move on to stretching our legs.

I'm gonna start by standing with my feet together and my arms up top, and I'm going to stretch down as far as I can, trying to touch my toes, or if I can, touch the floor.

Now when it comes to these stretches, it takes a lot of time to be able to touch the floor, so if you can only touch your knees, that's okay.

The more we practice, the farther we will be able to do this stretch.

Go ahead and slowly come up.

Now remember, while we're doing these stretches, keep breathing while we're doing these stretches.

You never wanna hold your breath.

You wanna keep breathing as we stretch.

Now, let's bring our legs out into a straddle.

That means I'm gonna bring them out farther apart.

I'm going to now stretch up tall again, and I'm going to reach to one foot, reaching over to the side.

And again, I'm gonna hold that stretch, stretching as far as I can.

Breathing as I hold it.

(breathing deeply) And slowly come up, bringing those arms back up over your head, and we'll go back down to the other side, going down as far as I can, holding that stretch, still breathing as I go.

(breathing deeply) And slowly come up.

Go ahead and put your arms straight up in the air, and now we're going to stretch as far as we can down, trying to see if we can touch the floor, stretching as far as we can and breathing as we hold this stretch.

(breathing deeply) And slowly come up.

How does your body feel?

Do you feel like it's ready to begin all our movements today?

I agree.

What we're gonna do now is we're gonna do a little bit of cardio.

We're gonna get that heart rate up.

Today, we're gonna practice jumping rope.

Now I know what you're thinking.

"I don't have a jump rope!"

But guess what?

You don't need to have a jump rope in order to practice jumping rope.

We can use our imaginations.

So I want you to pretend you're holding a jump rope.

My jump rope is blue.

What color is yours?

Very good.

So we're gonna use those jump ropes, and we're gonna pretend to jump rope.

Show me what your arms do when you jump rope.

That's right, our arms are making circles.

Do you see how I'm doing this?

I'm using my arms to make circles, making my imaginary jump rope go around.

Now as I do this, I can add in my jumps.

Are you jumping with me?

Very good.

As we start to get the hang of the jumps in the arms, you can start to pick up your pace, going a little bit faster as we jump.

Very good!

Excellent job, boys and girls, let's do five more seconds!

And, stop.

Whew, that jump rope definitely how your heart rate up.

You might feel that your heart is beating faster, you're breathing maybe a little bit harder, maybe a little bit quicker.

That means that our heart is moving, right?

It's doing its job, working a little bit faster.

So when we do these types of exercises, like jumping and running, we notice our heart rate goes up a little bit.

So, what do we do when it gets too high?

We do our deep breaths.

So we're gonna practice, we're gonna breathe in, bringing our arms over our head.

(inhales deeply) And out, (exhales deeply) bringing arms back down.

In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Let's do two more.

In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Very good.

So if you ever notice, while you're playing outside, while you're playing sports, you're starting to feel that heavy breathing, take a moment, do a couple deep breaths, bring your body back down, and you'll be ready to keep going.

Now today, we're gonna slow things down.

Now we're gonna do some of yoga poses today.

Yoga poses help to improve on our flexibility, how good we can bend, and they focus on how good we can hold our positions, our balance.

So we're gonna do a few different poses today.

Now before we start, I wanna let you know something.

It's okay if you fall.

Some of these positions that we're gonna do today can be a little tricky, and if we're not quite ready for them, we might tip and fall over, and that's okay.

That's why we practice and we do these each and every single day.

So at the end of today, I'm gonna ask you which one of these poses you're gonna practice for the next week, so keep that in mind as we start to learn them.

Are you ready?

All right, we're gonna start off today with our candle pose.

So we're gonna come down to our knees, putting our knees on the ground, and our feet are behind us.

We're gonna come up on our knees.

So, I'm nice and tall.

A lot of yoga makes us think about our body positions.

So not leaning backwards, I'm not leaning forwards.

I'm up nice and tall.

My shoulders are up high, and I'm gonna put my hands in front of my chest, holding them together.

And as I do this, I'm gonna keep doing my deep breaths, breathing in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Very good.

In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Yoga can be a very calming activity.

It's a great way to start your day each morning, or to end it each night as you're getting ready for bed.

So if you want to incorporate a little more yoga into your day, try one pose in the morning, or one pose before you go to sleep.

Are you ready for our next pose?

All right, our next pose is the cow pose.

So what we're gonna do, you're gonna keep your knees on the ground, and you're gonna put your hands on the floor in front of you.

So I'm gonna make sure that my hands are right below my shoulders, so they're not too far out, and they're not too close to my knees.

I wanna make sure they're right underneath my shoulders.

Now, what I'm going to do (coughs) is I'm going to lift my head up.

And when you lift your head up, you might notice that your back arches a little bit, meaning that your tummy comes a little bit closer to the floor, and that's okay.

My neck and my spine, that big, long bone in my back, those are connected.

And so when I move one part of my body, another part might move along with it, and that's okay.

So I'm gonna my head up, noticing that my tummy moves a little closer to the floor, and I'm gonna hold this as I take a deep breath in.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Now what I want you to do is we're gonna try and kind of do the opposite with our body.

This time I'm gonna bring my head down, trying to get my ears to go right next to my arm, and I'm gonna notice how my back arches this time, meaning that my spine, right, if you put your hand along your back, you can feel your spine right in the middle?

It's gonna try and touch the ceiling.

I'm gonna create an arch, or a rainbow with my back.

Now I'm gonna take my deep breath in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) Let's go back, let's bring our head up, bringing our belly low to the floor, breathing in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) And one more time, arching my back, trying to bring my spine all the way to the ceiling, breathing in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Very good, boys and girls.

We're gonna do our next pose.

Now, my next pose is my cat pose, and it's in the same starting position.

I'm on my knees, and I'm gonna bring my hands right below my shoulders.

Now, this one's gonna start to really focus on that balance.

Okay, so in this pose, I'm now going to try and lift one of my feet straight out, keeping that leg nice and straight.

Now with this, I really wanna make sure that I'm holding my balance, keeping that core, the center of my body, nice and tight.

Stick with those deep breaths.

In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Now remember if you fall, or you need to put your leg down to get yourself steady and try again, that's okay.

Still breathing as I hold.

Now if you wanna challenge yourself, try putting your leg down and holding the other leg up.

(breathing deeply) When we practice our balance, we wanna make sure that we're balanced on both sides, giving both sides of our body a chance to practice.

So I'm still holding my balance.

Breathing in.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(breathing deeply) Very good, boys and girls.

These are some excellent cat poses.

Go ahead and bring your leg down.

How did that one feel?

Yeah, it was a little trickier, wasn't it?

The next one we're gonna do is a dog pose.

Now, this dog pose, we're also gonna be going sideways.

If you're like me and you have a little bit of a mat, it might help, because this one can be a little bit slippery with our feet.

So I have socks on, so I want something underneath me to help me kinda keep my grip.

What else I could do, I could also have shoes on that help keep my feet from slipping on the floor, or I could take my socks off.

That might help a little bit too.

So in this pose, I'm gonna be starting from my knees, with my hands underneath my shoulders.

This time, I'm going to straighten my legs and get my knees off the ground, lifting my bottom towards the ceiling.

So I'm going to keep my arms straight, and I'm going to straighten my legs.

My head can come down, and I'm gonna hold my dog pose.

(breathing deeply) Breathing as I go.

Now again, if you need to come down, take a moment, and then do it again, you can do that.

So again, keeping my hands down, I'm going to push on my feet, straightening my legs and pushing my bottom towards the ceiling.

Holding this pose.

Breathing as I hold, keeping my balance.

(breathing deeply) Very good, boys and girls.

Go ahead and come on down.

(breathing deeply) Excellent job.

(breathing deeply) Very good.

The next pose we're going to come to is a mouse pose.

So from here, I'm going to bring my bottom back towards my feet, and I'm going to bring my head down to the ground, making myself nice and small, like a mouse.

If I want, I can bring my hands a little bit closer, making myself this nice, tiny ball.

Still breathing in (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Two more times, in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) In.

(inhales deeply) And out.

(exhales deeply) Very good, boys and girls.

All right, we're gonna take a short little break.

This is a really good time for you to get some of that hydration back in.

Drink some of your water.

We've been doing a lot of exercises.

Even though our heart rate's not up with our yoga poses, we're still moving our body, so we wanna make sure that we're staying hydrated.

So let's get a quick drink, and then we're gonna come back and do a few more poses.

See you soon!

All right, boys and girls, so we have a couple more poses that we're gonna do that are really gonna focus on our balance.

So the next pose is our warrior pose.

So, for this pose, we're gonna be standing up.

I'm gonna put one foot in front, and I'm gonna bend that knee.

So I'm gonna bring my other foot back, I'm gonna have my back leg straight, and my front leg is going to be bent.

Now to help, I'm gonna turn my back foot sideways, so my back foot is going to point towards you, and my front foot is gonna point away.

I'm now gonna bring my arms up in front and behind.

This is my warrior pose.

So I'm gonna lean into that front leg, and I wanna be careful that my knee does not go over my toes.

That's not good for my ankle.

So to keep my knee right above my toes, if I need to, I can always move my foot.

Holding my arms out, I'm gonna breathe as I hold this pose.

(breathing deeply) If I wanna try something a little different, I can try my warrior pose on other side.

Bending that front leg, keeping that back leg straight, right, turning my feet, holding my arms up nice and big as I breathe.

(breathing deeply) Holding that pose, keeping my arms up.

They're gonna wanna fall, we gotta use all our strength to hold them up.

(breathing deeply) And come on down.

The last pose that we're gonna do today is one that's gonna be really tough, really gonna challenge all of our balance skills.

It's the tree pose.

Now, for the tree pose, I'm gonna keep my hands in front of my chest.

Now I'm gonna bring one leg, I'm gonna bring that foot next to my knee.

So I'm gonna have to balance up.

Again, it's okay if you fall.

I'm gonna bring that leg, I can use my hand to help me, and I really wanna steady myself.

What really helps is if I use my eyes.

I pick one thing on the wall across from me, and I stare at it.

Just gonna stare as I continue to breathe.

(breathing deeply) And you can put your foot down.

Remember, the first time you hold it, you hold it for one second, that's awesome!

The next time you hold it, go for two seconds!

And then the next time, three seconds.

And as we continue to practice, we can continue to grow our yoga skills.

If you wanna challenge yourself, try your other side that you're not as comfortable with.

bring your foot to your knee.

If you need to, always put your hand on a wall to help study yourself, or a chair nearby.

Don't use a person, though, 'cause you might knock them over.

And then hold your hands.

Breathing.

(breathing deeply) Whew, I'm definitely not as comfortable with this side, so I can use the practice.

But, that's okay.

Oop!

It's okay!

Excellent job, boys and girls.

So, today, I taught you a few different yoga poses that you could use in your life.

Now, in our mindful moment as we end the day, I want you to take a few deep breaths with me.

Breathing in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) Breathing in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) One more time, in, (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales deeply) And I want you to think about a time in your day when you could add one yoga pose this week.

Do you wanna try to add it to your morning, to help wake you up and get you ready for the day?

Do you wanna do it at night before you go to bed, to help you unwind as you're ready to go to sleep?

Do you think you need to do it in the middle of the day as a way to give yourself a chance to just think about your body, to practice your breathing, to calm your body in the middle of our crazy days?

When do you think you wanna add yours?

Oh, so now that you have a time of day picked out, which pose do you think you wanna practice this week?

Maybe you wanna practice the tree pose and get better at your balance.

Maybe you wanna practice our mouse pose.

Maybe it's our cow, or our cat.

Which pose do you think you wanna try this week?

Excellent.

So, you have a plan for the rest of the week.

Try and stick to it tomorrow, and if your goal was to get it in the morning and you forget, that's okay.

Maybe you do it as soon as you remember.

Maybe you wait till it's time before bed.

It's okay if we don't do it exactly when we thought.

The goal is to practice once a day.

Maybe try and do it with a family member.

Can you guys practice your poses each day?

A little bit of practice each day will help you get better at your balance, to help you get better at your flexibility, and become more confident in your yoga skills.

So, I hope that you had fun today practicing those yoga skills.

I hope that you continue to practice them as the week goes on, and we'll see you back here next week as we continue to move our bodies.

Bye, everyone!

(cheerful music) - [Announcer] "Teaching in Room 9" is made possible with support of Bank of America, Dana Brown Charitable Trust, Emerson, and viewers like you.

(cheerful music continues)