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Are you a kids yoga teacher who teaches mixed ages?
Perhaps in an after school club. Sometimes it can be tricky to know how to manage these dynamics and meet such differing needs, ages and developmental levels. In today's video and blog I’m talking all about how to manage mixed ages in your kids yoga class, I hope that you find it really useful. Mixed age classes are something that I used to experience a lot in my after school clubs. I had some extra curricular clubs that were grouped by year group, or ‘phase’ but most were mixed age and that meant a range from reception to year 6. I did find this hard at first but found some little strategies that helped to make this manageable and I’ll share those with you now. Structuring the class The structure of these classes usually looked like this:
Pose play for different age groups and abilities When teaching poses, I always give lots of different variations so that each child gets what they need. So, for example, in tree pose. Some children will benefit from having one foot on top of their other foot and hands and arms in one position. Other children may be able to place their foot on their lower leg, they may explore with a different arm position. There may be children in the same group who would benefit from a challenge, such as placing their foot on their leg and moving their arms around- or perhaps even experimenting with balancing with their leg out to the side. So, you can see how the same pose can support a range of different abilities through use of variation. This is just like it would be in an adult class, with people of varying abilities doing the same pose, but different expressions of the pose that best suit their body. I may also offer support through use of props, or options such as leaning on a wall or holding hands with a partner (assuming both children are happy with this). If I have a mixed age group of children, I stick to poses that are appropriate for the youngest children and add challenge through adapting the pose for the more able ones. This is a safer option than including more challenging poses. I have found that if I include more challenging poses, then those who aren’t really developmentally ready for this will still try to do it. Being creative with groupings I would generally start and end my club in the same way, with all children together. For creation time, I’d get creative with the groupings. This worked really well as most of my classes were large (about 24/ 25 children). Here are some different grouping strategies that I tried and had success with. Choices Here I allow the children to choose who they work with and be really flexible with this in terms of number of children. I say that I don’t mind who works with who as long as they are following our rules and nobody is feeling excluded. This actually works really well and I was often surprised who worked with who! Random Groups This is where children would be grouped randomly. I would do this by getting them to each pick from a bag and in the bag would be either mega blocks (big lego) or pegs (yep, clothes pegs) of different colours. If it was blocks, the children had to find their other group members by finding those with the same colour brick and build a tower together. If it was pegs, they would need to find a piece of card that was that colour and all peg their peg onto it together. This also worked well with scarves of different colours too. Random Partners Similar to random groups, but I used two piece puzzles and the children would have to find each other. For example a picture of a penguin and a word of a penguin would be partners Buddies This is where I would decide who would work together and would partner up older children with younger children. I might make it obvious that I had decided or I might give children name cards of who they were working with so it appeared more random than it was. Whole group Simple as that, the whole group together. Ability groups This is where I group children together by their ability. Obviously you need to know the kids pretty well for this because it isn’t necessarily the case that children of the same age will have the same ability. Again, I will either make it obvious that I am selecting who works with who, or I’ll manufacture it, by giving children specific colours for them to group together. When children are grouped in this way, it is possible to give each group different poses that suit their ability best. Mixing it up each week ensured that there wasn’t the opportunity for cliques to happen. This did happen at first! Don’t be afraid to change the groups if they aren’t working and if the children are clashing! Not everyone will like everyone and that is ok! Tasks for creation time- what the kids actually do! Choices After introducing the poses of the week (and maybe playing some games with them), I’d give the children some suggestions of things that they might like to do in their groups/ partners. Kids are really creative and imaginative and usually LOVE being given the freedom to choose what they do. I’d observe and keep an eye out to be ready to support where groups were having problems or needed a bit of extra guidance. One job This is where I would give everyone a task to do in their groups, it could be to create a flow or group pose or play a game that we have learnt. Everyone is in groups, but everyone is doing the same thing. Rotation (obstacle course style) This is a fun thing to do at the beginning or end of a series of classes and kids love it. They rotate around the activities having a turn on each one for a specified amount of time. Supporting and extending When the children are working in groups, I make the most of that time to go and individually support and extend the learning where I see that the children need it. This could be by going and giving some specific pose cards to individual children, or chatting and suggesting alternative movements that might better suit their bodies. What about those children who are odd ones out? Sometimes, we get a random older child who is the only one of their age in the class. This is totally fine and probably a really nice experience for them to be ‘the older one’. Again, you might get a random ‘young’ one who doesn’t have their friends there. This can be a great new way of building their social network. If you notice times when someone is looking like they are feeling left out, it is a great time to give them a bit of one on one time. I always used to have something in my bag for this scenario. It could be:
Bringing it all together For me, the key to making a class fun and challenging for everyone, is giving some free creation time and observing what the children are doing and giving individual attention where it is needed. All the children in our classes really want is to feel seen, heard, understood and safe. That’s something that all of us can do. I hope that you found that useful, I’d love to know your thoughts. Is there anything that you will try and integrate into your own classes? Is there anything that you do in your classes that I haven’t mentioned? We all bring our unique gifts to our classes and I’m only sharing my own personal experiences and views, these are not ‘the ultimate’ or ‘the correct’ ways of doing things. Would you like some extra support? Did you know that I offer mentoring programmes. Imagine getting my support for 6 months?
If you know that you want to boost your kids yoga business in 2025, why not buy a mentor package now? You can receive your support from January onwards but get instant early access to all e-courses and resources as soon as you buy. Such a great way to up-skill over the holidays to prepare you for your classes in January! Currently just £750 this will be increasing (to £1000) in February -when all courses will be updated.
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