A childhood yoga practice is a special gift we can give our kids. But what is the best way to get them started with yoga? While you obviously don’t need any material things for a yoga practice, having some teaching tools can pique your child’s interest. Check out these 10 children’s yoga gifts to help build your kiddo’s passion for yoga!
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Benefits of Children’s Yoga
It’s never too early to begin practicing yoga. In fact, I wish I had gotten started so much earlier! I took an interest in yoga when I was in middle school, but classes and yoga resources weren’t easily accessible to me at the time. I didn’t develop a regular yoga practice until I was out of college.
Yoga has so many benefits for children, both physically and mentally. Studies are showing that yoga improves balance, strength, and endurance for kids who practice (just like it does for adults!). And children who practice yoga have increased focus, memory, and self-esteem.
Many yoga poses are natural for kids. Child’s pose and happy baby are even named after them! I remember doing plow and wheel all the time as a child, and my body recognized them in yoga classes when I got older.
See also: The Best Prenatal Yoga Props for Your Pregnancy Yoga Practice
10 Children’s Yoga Gifts
Through yoga, kids can learn compassion, mindfulness, and self-awareness – three things that our world direly needs. If your child is ready to start learning yoga, you’re in luck. There are a plethora of adorable yoga mats, videos, books, and accessories available for children. Here are just a few…
1. Gaiam Kids’ Yoga Mat
Gaiam is one of my favorite yoga companies. I usually buy my own mats from them because they’re durable, affordable, and attractive. And their kids’ yoga mats seem to be the same! This mat is 3mm thick, 60 in long, and 24 in wide. It has a sticky and grippy texture that looks a lot like my mat. And it comes in adorable designs, including the unicorn pictured here, a rocket, birds, dinosaurs, an owl, mermaid scales, and a shark.
See also: 5 Best Prenatal Yoga Mats
2. Yoga Bunny Book
This sweet story is about a yoga-practicing bunny who just wants his woodland friends to do yoga with him. This book is the perfect way to subtly teach your children about the benefits of yoga. And the illustrations remind me a bit of The Runaway Bunny, one of my childhood favorites.
3. Yoga Coloring Book
Combining coloring with yoga is a great idea! Each page of the coloring book includes a picture of a child and an animal performing a yoga pose to color, as well as the name of the pose. Coloring in the yoga poses can help your child remember their names, and they might even be inspired to practice some yoga in between all their coloring!
4. Yogi Junior Kids’ Mat
The Yogi Junior mat features adorable animals. It comes in green, blue, pink, purple, and orange. The mat is textured to prevent slipping, and its rounded corners are a unique feature. Yogi Junior’s mat is also 1/4 in thick to keep kids comfortable as they learn new poses.
5. Good Morning Yoga and Goodnight Yoga Books
Written and illustrated by the same team, Good Morning Yoga and Good Night Yoga would be the perfect books to incorporate into a young child’s wake-up and bedtime routines. The stories include poses that will wake kids up or calm them down, depending on the time of day. And Good Morning Yoga has a Good Morning Yoga Flow and a visualization for How I Want to Feel Today.
6. Yoga Cards for Joyful Learning
This kit includes 20 yoga pose cards with beautiful illustrations, 20 poem/direction cards, 2 dice, and a book with 4 activities. The cards are really versatile. Some parents said they use the suggested games and have also made up their own. The illustration cards give children something to imitate, so you could lay them out to create a yoga sequence that you and your child can do together. The kit also includes a birthday activity. What a wonderful way to incorporate yoga into your child’s special day!
7. Khataland Foldable Children’s Yoga Mat
Khataland’s kids’ mat is the only one I’ve found that is foldable, which is such a great feature for a children’s yoga mat! It also comes with a bag, which makes it easy to tuck away in a drawer or on a shelf to cut down on clutter. And you can just fold up the mat and stick it in your child’s backpack if they need it for school or an activity. They might struggle to carry and manage a rollable mat, but this foldable one is extremely portable for kids.
8. My First Yoga Board Book
If you’re trying to start your little one on yoga early, this board book is the way to go! Cute illustrations of the animals and objects connected with yoga poses will help your child learn and remember them. And photos of kiddos their age will help them visualize how to put their body in a pose! There’s even a sequence of poses that will help you explain how poses can help engage, energize, and calm your mind and body.
9. Yoga Dice Game
This yoga dice game has great reviews! It’s a group game where players compete together by holding yoga poses. It fosters teamwork and encourages students or families to work together to complete a shared goal. The dice are large and colorful, and kids can challenge themselves by trying new yoga poses or holding them for longer than they thought they could.
10. The ABCs of Yoga for Kids Poster
The ABCs of Yoga poster would be perfect for a classroom where the teacher wants to regularly incorporate yoga into their students’ day. The illustrations are gorgeous, and many of the poses have been renamed with child-friendly descriptors, like “Grasshopper” instead of Sphinx.
What is your best advice for encouraging children’s yoga practice? Tell me in the comments!
