Child’s Pose
Toronto’s chillest kindergartners on living the yoga life
is everywhere. There are classes in aquariums and breweries. There’s Harry Potter– and Drake-themed yoga. And if you drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake, you can do downward dog with goats. So it should come as no surprise that some schools are incorporating yoga into their curriculum. At David Hornell Junior School in Mimico, four- and five-year-olds in Kelly Wenzel’s kindergarten class do a post–rest period yoga session a few times a week. They follow along with Cosmic Kids Yoga, a video series on YouTube that teaches kids about mindfulness while improving strength, flexibility and balance, all through interactive stories. And every session starts and ends with a “namaste.” We paid a visit to see the pint-size practitioners in action and asked what yoga means to them.
“Yoga makes me feel strong and good!”
“Yoga makes me feel happy. And I like balancing.”
“Yoga makes me strong—and it makes me so, so, so, so fast!”
“If I made up my own pose, I’d call it the funny flamingo!”
“Doing yoga makes me feel healthy and relaxed.”
“If I could invent a yoga pose it would be called the cuckoo pose.”
“I don’t really like yoga… but the boat pose is easy.”
“My favourite yoga is Frozen yoga. My favourite poses are the Frozen poses.”