2023 AIMwell KIDS Yoga Spring Break At the YMCA
WE DID IT! AIMwell KIDS successfully hosted our first Yoga Spring Break at the Linwood YMCA here in Kansas City.
If you would have told us the Sunday before this started that we’d double enrollment, make it to Friday without tears, and want to embark on this journey all over again next year… we might have laughed. The amount of stress, nervousness, imposture syndrome, etc., that we had was out of this world. Pretty sure Boni grew 4 grey hairs in a night prepping for this.
But with everything, it comes and goes, whether you want the time to pass or not. By Friday afternoon, 3 o’clock was nearing at an incredible rate and a ping of sadness struck because this experience was coming to a close.
Before we get too far into our reflection, let us take you day by day on our spring break yogic journey. Unroll your mat and have a soapy towel ready, things might get a little messy.
Day 1: Nerves
Day one started like most days don’t - at 3:30 AM. Truly wish there was a picture to show our sleep deprived face trying to figure out how to print our “Become Your Own Superhero” workbooks. It’s a little trickier on our HP Office Jet home printer than we imagined.
We worked out of these books everyday. After about a 20 minute yoga flow, the girls entered into a 2 minute silent meditation followed by a singing bowl meditation. We then brought life back to our bodies and journaled before our next activity.
Once we picked up a quad Starbucks and breakfast for the girls, we made our way to the YMCA for an unboxing party influencers could only dream of. But instead of us making content out of it, we recruited our early bird yogis to help make it feel like Christmas. The big question of the morning was, “ I wonder what’s in THAT box.”
Our first learning - have all materials unboxed before the yogis arrive.
It was not detrimental by any means, but it meant everyone saw all the weeks activities and therefore would ask if we could do one activity over the other if they thought it seemed more appealing. Luckily, we did plan for a hard hitter out the gate… TIE DYE. We had never done it before and it lived up to our fears…. There might still be dye under our fingernails.
We also had our first journal prompt in our “Become Your Own Superhero” Workbook. This one was: “If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose? What would you do with it?” Later we connected how yoga can help us embody those powers and others.
To end the day after a swim and lunch, we took the crew outside for a nature walk.
The yogis were reminded to observe the sounds and smells and that lead to a massive rock collection stroll. I’m talking huge and sparkling, small and dazzling rocks that require separate bags to get home.
Day one in a nutshell - expectantly stressful, unexpectedly easier and more rewarding than we imagined.
Day 2: Cautious excitement
Day Two was like when you’ve hung out with someone a few times and then they invite you somewhere you’ve never been and you think this might be the moment your Netflix documentary starts. A long way of saying we were so happy to be back with a little more confidence under us, but also very well aware this could be the day it goes sour.
Kids are funny. The first time you meet them things might seem fine and dandy and then that second time comes and you’re being introduced to an entirely different kiddo. The nature of the game and we were unsure if that was going to be the case.
Thankfully, it was not. When we say we had a great GREAT bunch, we were incredibly lucky. Day 2 started the way Day 1 was supposed to. We had breakfast, did our yoga flow, meditated, journaled, played a game, swam and ate lunch. Each day in the morning was pretty much the same. The afternoon’s is where were threw in some fun changes.
During Yoga we explored Goddess Pose, Low Lunges and Straddle forward fold.
A couple of the games played were:
Mirror the Pose: our partner Madi brought laminated images of different shapes of the body. Yogis had these cards at the front and back of their mats and had to first mirror each pose separately, then moved seamlessly from one shape to the next.
Yoga Freeze Dance Party: Start music and dance then pause and call out yoga pose, must hold it for 5 breathes
Day 2’s afternoon activity was creative.
First, we had the young yogis create their emotions in their workbooks. We saw characters than embodied happiness, hunger, loneliness, and more.
Then, we allowed the girls to paint whatever their hearts desired. From cats, to anime characters, swirls and 3D paint bloops, it was a messy time that gave space for creative freedom.
Day 2 in a nutshell - Pride and Confidence building.
Day 3: Dynamic
Day 3… dynamic or dynamite? Ha. We had one new yogi and one yogi was gone for the day. The dynamics of the group shifted. There was a new oldest and a new youngest and we were challenged.
Yet, it’s nothing one can’t expect from a group of 5-11 year olds spending days on end with one adult. We still had an explosive time, but had to speed things up to keep our 5 year old engaged, yet slow things down to ensure proper time management and that the lessons were landing. Tricky dynamics.
As we did the day prior, we fixed breakfast and made our way to our mats for our yoga practice. Instead of going the traditional route with our yoga this morning, I provided the yogis stickers and they morphed into the animal on the sticker. For example, we had a cat sticker so of course we did Cat Pose, but we also had a Giraffe sticker so Giraffe Pose it was! This was a balancing posture (think single leg extension). We extended one arm over head and bent our wrist like a giraffe head, then stood on our tippy toes. This was a fun way to allow the yogis to break free of the yogic traditions and become more creative with their movements.
Our sound bath experience was largely referred to symbol sleep time, HA. But it worked out well to give the girls a break mid-morning to just be zen, chill, or sleep for a bit.
Our journal activity was - “Pretend that you had a time machine and could travel way into the future or to the past. Where would you go? What do you think life would be like?”
This one was fun, too because it was paired with a creative activity where we then drew our future or past adventure. I would argue to say the partner yogi activity was the highlight of this day. Breaking boundaries and establishing healthy connection and trust amongst the group was successful and paired with a lots of laughs!
Day 4: C^4 Comfort, Confidence, Croissants, and swim CAPS!
Day 4 MIGHT have been our favorite day.
We had 6 yogis! The relationships were cultivated, the routines were understood, and the girls were ready to have a fun time. There’s something about the day before the last day that makes everything so much sweeter - it also could have been the lightly buttered croissants we had for lunch, too. YUM.
Per usual, we had breakfast, entered our movement, meditation, and journaling portion and then, per request from our young yogis, dove head first into our partner yoga. This was definitely even more entertaining that the first day. More bodies, more partners, more laughs!
Later in the day, Boni herself took to the pool. Get a laugh in with this pic!
We also had a few journalling activities today that were interactive and traditional:
Prompt 1: What is your favorite thing about yourself? What’s one thing you want to work on?
Prompt 2: When you get mad or grumpy, what’s one thing that helps you calm down? - this one is completed on a laminated balloon young yogis can take home
Prompt 3: If (happiness, sadness, anger, and disappointment) were sitting next to you, describe what would they look like, sound like, what do they say to you or to others? Are they mean or nice? Do they have different colors associated with them? Are you guys friends or enemies?
Day 5: Pride
J. Cole might not agree with this title, but Pride was not the death of us on Day 5. Bittersweet ran a close race for first, but successfully putting on an entire yoga spring break camp with only a few minds to bounce ideas around, 1 adult human to be responsible for the young humans, and 40 hours to fill for kids, the only emotion exuded was pride. There weren’t any tears we saw from our young yogis, but some parents ratted them out, exclaiming there were certainly tears before the day started - we don’t blame them!
This was such a fun, exciting, exploratory week. It meant so much to so many people that this was successful and tears we certainly shared on our end.
Day 5 started out as the others had. Breakfast, movement, and meditation. We explored one last journal entry: “If you could talk to your future self, what would you ask? If you could talk to your past self, what would you say?” The responses were heartwarming and precious. I thank each of the young yogis for opening up to us and allowing us to peak our heads into their worlds.
Some fun was had with Yogi Says and the SHABOOYA Roll Call Reel was created (link).
But it wouldn’t be the last day if it didn’t include some fun last day events!
We presented the Executive Director with an AIMwell Partner tee for all his help in supporting community wellbeing.
Each yogi was given their own AIMwell KIDS tees exclusive to this Spring Break program.
We lead a aquatic yoga class to the members of the YMCA
Our young yogis rode on the aquatic boat
A. BOUNCE. HOUSE
We got so caught up in the fun, we lost track of time. The parents came, the goodbyes were swifter than hoped. We cleaned up our space and that’s it. The week was over.
Thank you to the parents who trusted us with your precious kiddos during this week. Thank you to the Linwood YMCA and their Executive Director, André for the support. This was the best experience and we cannot wait until, the SUMMER to do a condensed yoga camp again. We’ll back back for the full experience Spring 2024.
Stay Tuned! 🪷
The GOOD stuff - our Amazon Haul:
These stickers were a HIT - full of positive quotes, fun animals, and more. Our books were full of them by the end of the week!
Got these aprons for our messy activities. They definitely were a good buy. They were also perfect because we were able to decorate them which is always fun!
I know y’all are DYING to know about our TIE DYE ;) - here’s the link. Perfect for a group of 6 or less.
We thought shirts were overrated for tie dye so we went with these bags for our tie dye experiment.
Arguably the most desired attraction we had… these squishy balls. Lesson Learned, to give them out at the end and maybe order a pack that are the same, but the girls loved it.
We loved these cards! They gave some guidance to some poses and were chalk full of fun activities for our young yogis. Would 1000% recommend!
This fun yogi ball is a great ice breaker or time filler when you’re in between activities!
These guided mediation cards were useful, but we only wish we pulled them out sooner. I think they’ll be a great addition next time and would recommend explaining them to your yogis if this is an activity you take.
What we loved but couldn’t use:
This beaded jewelry kit. With the age range and somewhat tight schedule, this proved to be a bit more messy than we accounted for. Maybe we’ll pre-make some jewelry for our yogis instead because the girls still loved it!
weeeeeee LOVE a good yoga cat puzzle, 5 year olds… not so much. a 500 piece at that. The idea was to fill time, the reality, a bigger mess than it was worth!
This paint your own potter set. It was a good problem to have was having too many yogis enroll! We will still try to use this for next time, but need to have a final count prior to the start of the week!
