I have an entire board on Pinterest of nothing but activities for books by Eric Carle. No surprise, I’m a big fan. Eric Carle has written and illustrated so many amazing books that not only teach children things like days of the week, colors, numbers, eating healthy and the life cycles of various insects, but he also teaches children about the importance of kindness, compassion, being a friend, and what it’s like to be the “odd person out”.
Those are just a few reasons I love Eric Carle’s books. The social emotional aspect of many of Eric Carle’s stories along with so many insects and animals featured in his books, make his stories a natural fit for yoga lesson plans. I created a set of 20 yoga pose cards that follow along with some of Eric Carle’s most popular books.
I know that finding unique Eric Carle activities to use for your lesson plans for preschoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders can sometimes be challenging. Yoga is the perfect solution (no surprise there, right?) I say that jokingly, but incorporating yoga into your lesson plans has so many benefits for you and your students.
Sometimes kids just need to move, am I right? They squirm, wiggle, tap, kick and whatever else they can think of because they need to move. We also know some children need to move more than others. Yoga helps children learn while they move, improves balance and coordination, increases muscle tone and body awareness and even helps with self-esteem and self-confidence. Not to mention they LOVE it!
You don’t need to have any previous yoga experience to use our yoga pose cards. I do encourage you to do the yoga poses along with your child or students. Seeing you engaged, helps them engage. Most of our cards have cute clipart for visual cues for the poses and each yoga pose is a photograph of a child doing the yoga pose (meaning not animated).
