CALM YOUR CLASSROOM: THE MAGIC OF MUSIC, MOVEMENT & MINDFULNESS FOR KIDS

In this dynamic, inspiring, and FUN workshop—full of immediately actionable ideas—kids’ yoga and mindfulness expert, author, TEDx speaker, and award-winning musician Kira Willey will teach you how to incorporate music, movement and mindfulness easily and seamlessly into your classroom in order to: --Give your students the tools to calm themselves --Teach essential social-emotional lessons --Empower children with skills to release their anxiety and stress --Help kids develop self-awareness, the first step to self-regulation --Incorporate healthy movement breaks, without losing control --Completely engage (and keep) kids’ attention --Create predictable, calming structure --Ease transitions --Help kids focus their energy, and more!

Learn the critical role the “3 M’s” - music, movement, and mindfulness - play in helping kids self-regulate and focus their energy, and in getting the frequent brain breaks they need to be ready to learn. Kira will teach an arsenal of practical, quick, and easy-to-use mindfulness tips and techniques to calm your classroom (and yourself!), focus your students, and help them release anxiety. Kid-friendly breathing and focus exercises, chair yoga, and simple songs which incorporate movement will be included.

Kira will demonstrate her teaching methods using original music from her five award-winning CDs of kids’ yoga songs, as well as playing live. She’ll guide participants in creating their own simple mindfulness activities, rhythm games, call & response songs and more to help ease transitions, focus children, and help them learn how to cope with stress. (There’s absolutely no musical experience necessary, Kira’s an expert at making these techniques immediately accessible to everyone!)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: —Simple mindfulness techniques to calm and focus children —How mindfulness is an ideal vehicle for social emotional learning —How music, rhythm, and movement affect the brain —How music and memory work together to help kids retain information —How to use rhythm & song to create predictable, calming structure —How to create simple, memorable rhythm games and songs —How to unify a group with music —How to combine music and movement to fully engage children

We’ll have a blast trying these techniques together, and we’ll discuss practical applications and ways to incorporate these techniques into your day. You’ll practice using what you've learned, and leave totally inspired, with tons of use-it-now ideas to incorporate into your classroom right away!