Animal Friends Yoga
As you probably know, yoga postures were invented thousands of years ago by yogis mimicking their natural environment. That’s why you find often yourself in tree pose, cat pose, and mountain pose during yoga class.
On our website, you may have seen some of our animal yoga sequences for kids, including zoo animals, farm animals, Arctic animals, African animals, and Australian animals.
Today, let’s look at acting out animals that are close to our children’s hearts–pets.
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Animal Friends Book and Yoga Poses for Kids
The following animal friends yoga sequence was inspired by the adorable English-Spanish book My Friends Mis Amigos by author-illustrator Taro Gomi. The story follows a little girl who meets up with various animal friends during a walk. She learns something from each of them: jumping like a dog, climbing like a monkey, and running like a horse. It’s a great little book to talk about learning something from everyone. Below are five yoga poses from the book. For fun, try to invent poses for the other animals, too.
My Friends-Mis Amigos
by Taro Gomi
Cat – Cat Pose
(On all fours, tuck your chin into your chest and round your back. Meow.)
Dog – Downward-Facing Dog Pose
(Step back to hands and feet in an upside-down V shape. Ruff, ruff.)
Horse – Horse Stance
(Stand with your legs apart, with your feet facing slightly outwards. Bend your knees and stand firm like a horse. Neigh.)
Butterfly – Cobbler’s Pose
(Sit on your buttocks with a tall spine, bend your legs, place the soles of your feet together, and gently flap your legs like the wings of a butterfly.)
Rabbit – Hero’s Pose with Bunny Breath
(Come back to rest upright on your heels and take four to six short breaths then a long exhale.)
Ready for your own animal friends yoga pose challenge?
Years ago, I led a kindergarten class through an animal pets yoga sequence. We brainstormed a list of pets then matched each pet to a yoga pose that made sense to them. For example, not surprisingly, cat was cat pose, and dog was downward-facing dog pose. We pretended that we all lived together in the same neighborhood. We imagined that one day, I went to visit each of their houses, and we all acted out each pet through a matching yoga pose.
Can you make your own list of five pets then look at the list of yoga poses to create your own yoga sequence? Share your yoga sequence in the Comments below.
My daughter in Cat Pose.
What is your favorite animal friend yoga pose?
Check Out Our Pet Yoga Cards for Kids
Celebrate your pet or pretend to be a pet your child only has imagined befriending with these fun and simply Pet Yoga Cards for Kids.
This colorful deck is a wonderful way to enjoy the joys of yoga with your children.
This deck of 51 colorful cards includes:
- an index card listing the pet poses in a sequence
- instructions for 20 pet yoga poses
- 20 illustrated cards showing the poses
- 20 matching pet cards
- yoga teaching tips
The yoga poses in the index are sequenced specifically to invite flow from one pose to the next. This takes the guesswork out of figuring out which pose to do next.
Download these Pet Yoga Cards to learn through movement in your home, classroom, or studio.
The yoga kids featured in the illustrations are multicultural and from a variety of countries.
Ages 3+
Purchase Pets Yoga Cards for Kids here.
Spanish Language Activities for Mis Amigos
This post is part of our Spanish and Kids Yoga series co-hosted by Spanish Playground. Check out her article on Spanish animal friends activities with listening activities, puppets, games, and book-making.
Join us next month for kids yoga, Spanish, and stories. Check out our schedule for the year:
2013-2014 Spanish and Kids Yoga Monthly Book Themes
August: Bill Martin Jr
September: Latin America
October: Bedtime
November: Australia
December: Farm
February: Africa
March: Zoo
April: Animal Friends
May: Ocean
June: Asia
Want to know when the new Spanish Books and Kids Yoga posts are up? Sign up for our weekly Kids Yoga Stories Newsletter by adding your email address to the box at the top of the page. Have you seen our English and Spanish yoga stories for kids?!
