Do Yoga and Learn about Outer Space with Kids
Do you have kiddos in your life or classes that are interested in outer space or the planets and galaxies? Get them moving and active while fueling their interest by doing some out spaced themed yoga!
Themed yoga is a super fun way to teach kids yoga and get them moving in their everyday lives. Whether you are at home, with kids in school, or in a kids yoga studio, themes can help engage kids in yoga and mindfulness to help them stay active and healthy.
Here’s another post with lots of pose ideas for different themed yoga classes.
If you are ready to teach a fun kids yoga class with outer space as your theme, keep reading!
Click here for the full printable lesson plan and full size pose images of the lesson plan
Fun facts about outer space for kids
Before you get started with your kid’s yoga lesson on outer space, it’s important to engage your kiddos and get them excited about the topic (if they aren’t already!).
Here are some fun facts related to the kid’s yoga poses we will be doing in our lesson (courtesy of The Planets. Use the teaching prompts to add a little yoga and mindfulness practice to each fact.
- Space is completely silent. Let’s imagine we are in space where it is absolutely silent. Let’s close our eyes and be completely still. Our bodies and minds are just silent, listening. Raise a hand if you hear a sound, but keep yourself as silent as space
- Venus is the hottest planet, at 450° C. Can you make your warms really hot by rubbing them together super fast? Then exhale some warm air in your cupped hands to keep them warm.
- There may be life on Mars! It would likely be very tiny and microscopic, but still exciting. Can you come up with a yoga pose for aliens or microscopic life on Mars?
- No one knows how many stars are in space. It could be as many as 400 billion! Let’s do Star pose and close our eyes to imagine how many billions of stars are out there.
- A full NASA space suit costs $12,000,000! What would you do with that money? Can you think of one charity that you would give some of that to?
- The footprints on mars will be there for 100 million years! Let’s pretend you could make a footprint last that long by stepping really hard, back and forth like an elephant.
Darth Vader Mindful Breathing
Get ready for some yoga and mindfulness with kids by practices some deep breathing. Mindful breathing is a great way to wake up, calm down, focus, center, or feel grounded. No matter what state your kiddos are in, focused breathing will help them to get ready for the next task.
Darth Vader breathing is fun space-themed mindfulness practice for kids yoga because it immediately gets them thinking about the sound that Vader makes when he breathes, which is what you want them to do!
Seal your lips and gently separate your teeth inside your mouth. Breathe in through your nose. Imagine you are lighting fogging up a mirror or bus window, and exhale with your lips still sealed.
You should hear a Darth Vader sound as you breathe or a sound like the ocean.
Star Tracing for More Deep Breaths
Grab an outline of a star, draw one on a piece of paper for each child, or print out my PDF below.
Breathe in towards the point of one arm, then breathe out towards the middle. Do this around the whole star. Option to add a “hold” at the tip of your inhale as well.
Click on the image for a free download of my Star breathing printable here, and get an additional full set of breathing exercises for kids below!
Sun Salutation For Kids
The most important star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, is our very own Sun. Let’s do a sun salutation to get warmed up before we try our other space-themed yoga poses.
- Mountain Pose
- Crescent Moon
- Chair Pose
- Forward Fold
- Plank Pose
- Baby Cobra
- Down Dog
- Frog Pose
- Forward Fold
Repeat several times with deep breaths during each pose to get nice and warmed up.
Spaced Themed Yoga Poses
For a video version of this kids yoga adventure through outer space, check out my YouTube channel here
Space Themed Yoga Book for Kids
For a full kids yoga adventure in a storybook, check out this adorable kids yoga book by Robyn Snow, A Yoga Adventure Through Space. It’s a fabulous kids’ yoga adventure with science facts, movement, mindfulness, and breathing activities.
A Yoga Adventure Through Space by Robyn Snow
Be sure to check it out! I especially love the different colors of the kids’ spacesuits and the little alien that shares facts about things you find in space!
More Space Themed Yoga Poses for Kids
LaunchPad
Tabletop: Kneel on hands and knees to make a square table shape like the launchpad for the rocket ships.
Spaceship
Plank pose: Pause in plank pose with hands under shoulders and your body in a long straight line like a spaceship. Rock forward and back on your toes to get ready for blast off!
Rocket
Chair Pose: Stand with your legs together, knees bent, and arms lifted. Crouch down low as you count down from 10, then BLAST OFF! Up and into the air with a big jump.
For added fun, make this homemade rocket craft to use along with rocket pose!
Blast off for the Astronaut
Legs Up the Wall: Astronauts are laying down and buckled in during takeoff. Lay on your back and stick your legs straight up into the air with your arms at your sides.
Space Robot (Rover):
Down Dog: Place your hands on the floor and step your feet back to make an upside-down “v” like a rover robot. Take steps forwards, backwards, and to the side like you are exploring the moon.
Moon Walk
Slow marching (Forward lunges): Pretend to take BIG, slow steps like you are walking in zero gravity. Step forward slowly and bend your knees, then do the other side.
Stars
Star Pose: Stand with your feet far apart, toes facing forward or slightly out. Reach your hands out to the sides to make a star shape. Close your eyes and imagine the billions of stars in the universe.
Saturn’s Rings
Star with Twists: From Star Pose, bring a gentle bend to your knees but keep your feet planted firmly on the ground. Start to twist from your middle, letting your arms swing around from side to side. Imagine you are creating the rings of Saturn that whoosh around the giant planet!
Shooting Star
Falling Star Pose: From star pose, gently bring your weight to one foot and start to lift your other leg off the ground tilting sideways like a shooting start. Hold and breathe, then move to the other side.
Melting Mercury
Wide-Legged Forward Fold: Check out this fun video from Yo Re Mi Yoga for Kids to melt like mercury for a few moments towards forward fold, and then freeze to one side! Just like the surface of Mercury does when it is rotating in front of the sun.
Asteroid
Child’s Pose: Sit with your bottom on your knees, and your head on the floor. Option to reach your arms long on the floor above your head or wrap them around towards your feet. Imagine you are a rock hurtling through space, ready to become a shooting star as you pass through the atmosphere.
Satellite
Squat with a twist: Squat low with your feet slightly wider than hip-width distance. Use your arms out at shoulder height to twist up and to the sides one at a time like a satellite soaring through space.
Splash Land
Boat Pose: Sit on your bottom with your legs together and knees bent, feet flat on the ground. Hold your hands behind your knees and keep your back straight.
Gaze at the Stars
Savasana: Lay flat on your back or with your knees bent so that you can relax your whole body into the floor. Close your eyes if you are comfortable, and imagine the whole darkness and silence of the universe. Imagine the moon, the planets, the sun, and all the other billions of stars that are beyond our galaxy. Take deep, slow breaths to relax your body even more.
Check out the full printable lesson plan with the adventure story, games, and full size pose images here:
Other Spaced Themed Books for Kids
Check out these other great books on outer space to use in your kids yoga class or with interested kiddos.
The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole: a wonderful story with the famous Ms. Frizzle and her magic school and class of curious students!
On the Launch Pad by Michale Dahl: This adorable counting book is great for young learners and includes math as well as facts about rockets!
Life on Mars by Jon Agee: A fun and silly book about exploring Mars. I love the alien cameo!
There’s No Place Like Space! By Tish Rabe and Aristides Ruiz: A Dr. Seuss style book with the Cat in the Hat! I love this one with lots of great rhymes and opportunities for yoga poses.
Outer Space Themed Learning Activity
Try these space skip counting puzzles for kids in preschool and early elementary. Mindfulness, math, and art all in one!
Space Themed Crafts for Mindfulness and Fun
This adorable space wreath is a great craft for kids and will be easy with things you probably have on hand.
Another fun craft, that doubles as a breathing tool, is a TP roll spaceship.
- Gather toilet paper rolls, construction paper, glue, markers, and tissue paper (in red and orange)
- Decorate around the sides or glue on construction paper.
- Add a door and cut some triangles for the “feet” and “wings”
- Roll up another piece of paper for the cone but leave a hole at the top (for air to paa through)
- Cut long strips of red and orange tissue paper. Glue them around the bottom edge of the rocket on the side of the legs, not the nose.
- Once it dries, you can gently blow through the cone on the top to make the flames of the rocket flutter during lift-off!
Here’s an image and inspiration from OneLittleProject.com. Just omit the eyes and nose and put on cone on top and add wings for a rocket!
Make a Galaxy Themed Mindful Glitter Jar
Another craft project you can do with your outer space yoga class is to make a calming glitter jar that looks like a galaxy of stars.
- Gater a plastic bottle, fine glitter in galaxy colors, chunky star glitter, and optional glow in the dark star pieces or star confetti. You also need corn syrup (or glycerin!) and a bit of dish soap.
- Pour the glitter into the bottle, fine glitter first, then add the chunky glitter.
- Add warm water and swirl the glitter around to keep it from getting stuck together. Pour corn syrup in, up to a third of the way full.
- Drop in the glow in the dark stars if you have any!
- Add a couple of drops of soap, then fill the bottle almost full with more warm water.
- Close the cap, then shake vigorously for about a minute. The let it settle and see what you need to add.
- If needed, open the bottle and swirl around the glitter at the top to break it up and help it settle. Add more corn syrup if you want or warm water, maybe more soap to help break up the glitter more.
Click here for the full directions and images on how to make a glitter jar!
Amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing this fantastic information and featuring our new book.
You are so welcome, Robyn! Learning about outer space is such a fun theme for a kids yoga class 🙂