Spring themed yoga for kids is a great way to add in some movement and mindfulness to their day.
With so many kids yoga poses based on nature and animals, it’s easy to find and adapt tons of kids yoga ideas for the springtime.
Plus, when spring is finally here, all you want to do is take a step outside and breathe in the sweet fresh air of flowers blooming and fresh grass.
It’s always a good reminder to take deep breaths and practice mindfulness as well.
(There are also plenty of reasons adults would want to revisit yoga and mindfulness in the spring!)
You can even make several different yoga class sub themes out of all these spring ideas
- Spring is Here
- Weather Changes
- Easter
- Baby Animals
- Gardening
(Check out more kids yoga themes and ideas here)
Here are some fun spring themed yoga and mindfulness lesson plan ideas for kids
Spring Themed Yoga Poses
Watch this video to learn how to do the best, most adorable kids yoga poses for spring- baby animals, bugs, weather changes and more.
Bunny pose:
Kneel on your mat and sit on your feet. Reach your arms straight back behind you, then lower the top of your head to the floor, lifting your bottom slightly. Your arms should be up like a bunny’s ears.
Chick pose:
Squat down on your toes with your knees together. Put your hands up by your armpits like little chick wings and wiggle side to side.
Egg pose:
Lay on your back and bring your knees into your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs. Rock back and forth or side to side like an egg ready to hatch!
Blooming tree pose:
Stand up tall and press your hands together at your heart. Press one foot into your other leg to balance, and reach your arms slowly up and open your hands like flowers.
(Option to add lotus hands: spread your fingers wide and press just the base of your palms together. Touch the tips of your thumbs and pinkies together and round your hands open to make a flower shape.)
Rain pose:
Stand with your feet hip-width distance. Reach up with your arms and arch over and down towards the ground. Make a “shhhhhhh” sound like the rain falling and sway gently side to side.
Raindrop:
Squat down low with your feet together to make yourself small and round. Bring your hands up over your head to make a raindrop shape.
Lightning Bolt:
Stand with your feet and knees pressing together. Reach your arms up high alongside your ears, and bend your knees like you are sitting back in a chair. Wiggle your fingers and make thunder bolt sounds!
Flower pose:
Sit on your bottom with your feet together and knees wide. Lean back slightly, lifting up your feet to balance on your seat. Wrap your arms in between and underneath your knees. Make lotus symbols with your hands!
Rainbow pose:
Kneel up on your knees and put your right leg straight out to the side with your toes pointing forward. Reach your right arm up and over, away from your straight leg, arching your body to make a rainbow shape! This is also perfect as partner pose, mirroring and connecting hands.
Bee pose:
Sit on your heels and bend your arms, flapping your hands like bee wings. Make a buzzing sound with your breathe—breathe in through your nose and say “zzzzzzzz” on the exhale.
Caterpillar pose:
Start in high plank pose and lower your knees to the floor. Then, bend your arms and arch your back to rest your chest and chin on the floor! Alternately, lay on your tummy and bring your arms behind you alongside your hips. Wiggle side to side like a worm wiggling in the rain.
Butterfly pose:
Sit on your bottom and straighten your spine. Press your feet together and let your knees fall apart. Hold onto your feet or ankles and flap your legs like wings.
Bird pose:
Stand on one foot with your arms out wide like wings. Stretch your back leg out straight like a bird soaring through the sky.
Frog pose:
Squat down on your feet with your toes pointing out and your knees apart. Place your hands on the ground in front of you. Take big frog hops on the count of three!
Seed pose:
Kneel on the mat and sin on your feet. Bend over your knees and wrap your arms around behind you towards your feet. Rest your forehead on the ground and make yourself small like a seed.
Turtle pose:
Sit on your bottom with your knees bent and your feet flat. Separate your feet wide and wrap your arms between your legs, underneath your knees and around on top of your shins. Tuck your head down like a turtle in a shell!
Don’t forget to sign up for free kids yoga sequences, pose images, and lesson plans:
Spring Themed Yoga Games and Activities
Spring Up-Balloon Game
Blow up several pastel colored balloons. Divide into teams or groups. Play keep the balloon up!
Make rules like one finger only, stand on one foot, or close one eye to make this balloon game more challenging and mindful.
Jelly Bean Sort
Get a bag of jelly beans and several plastic cups. Mindfully (and quickly!) sort the jellybeans into cups or piles.
Make it more challenging by requiring the kids to move the jellybeans by plastic spoon to the other side of the room to be sorted. Then, they can either carry the spoon in their hand or in their teeth depending on their age!
Easter Egg Hunt
Print small versions of yoga pose cards to fold up or write pose names on small pieces of paper. Place the spring themed yoga poses in Easter eggs and hide them around the space!
Do each yoga pose as you find it for 5 breaths, or collect a whole set of 5-10 eggs and create the best yoga sequence out of the poses that you can with what you’ve got.
Sensory Bin
Gather some simple materials from around your house and yard to make a Butterfly life cycle sensory bin for your kids or students.
Sensory bins are easy to create, and help younger kids especially explore with their senses of touch, sight, and even smell. Sort, notice textures, work on fine motor skills, and learn about butterflies!
Spring Themed Yoga Story Books
It’s Spring! by Samantha Berger and Pamela Chanko
A lovely short book with a different animal on each page. They tell each other spring is here and describe something different that they see, hear or smell about spring. Perfect for yoga poses AND mindful noticing.
Rachel’s Day in the Garden by Giselle Shardlow
A yoga story book about spring in the garden. Rachel and her puppy take note of all the changes in her yard and are excited for the shift in the weather to turn to spring to help the garden grow. Yoga poses are shown on each page!
When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes
A lovely book about changes from winter to spring. Lots of chance to talk about noticing and being mindful of the weather, mud, dirt, gardens, leaves and flowers! Baby animals make a great appearance as well.
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano
An excellent shorter story of how the land and the world is transformed by rain and sun, worms and bugs to bring life back to the earth. Great for talking about waiting for spring, even the bears, birds, and dogs need to wait for seasonal changes!
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms, by Julia Rawlinson
A cute longer story about a young fox going in search of his favorite flowers. His other animal friends make a few appearances and help him on his springtime journey.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Follow the caterpillar as he eats his was through snacks and becomes a beautiful butterfly. Start as a wiggly caterpillar. Make a “bowl” with your legs out wide in seated forward fold. Place the food in and chop them or stir them up and eat them one by one! Become a beautiful butterfly!
Spring Song, by Barbara Sueling
Another excellent book with beautiful illustrations and plenty of animals in the story. Perfect for doing those spring themed animal poses as well.
Spring Themed Mindfulness Activities
Take a Mindful Walk Outside to Notice Spring Changes.
Walk slowly and pay attention to all your senses. What spring time animals do you hear? Can you see any new things growing? How do you feel? What do you smell that tells you spring is coming? Make a journal entry as you go along.
Try a Kindness Challenge
Things like positive affirmations are great for being kind to ourselves, but it’s important to practice kindness towards others as well! Try this spring kindness challenge with your kids to encourage more awareness of how we can be kind to each other.
Spring Themed Sudoku Puzzles
Get your brain thinking and your mind focused with these adorable spring sudoku puzzles for kids. A great way to learn about patterns and promote creative thinking. With little kids, the cutting and pasting is also a great small motor skill.
Memory Match Game
Keep those thinking skills sharp with this Free printable spring memory match game. Kids of all ages love praying memory and you can even add in some movement or yoga poses with each match you make!
Make a Spring Themed Mandala
Collect nature items that tell you spring is here:
- Fallen buds from trees
- Tiny leaves
- Shoots of grass
- Small pebbles
- Fur or fluff floating around
- Seeds, etc.
Make a mandala shape out of your collection of spring themed items and carefully notice the patterns and shapes.
Place your items on a piece of felt, or in some sand from a Zen box.
Create a Flower Petal Mandala from Flowers and a Paper Plate
- Cut the middle out of a paper plate
- Paint the outside rim
- Adhere clear contact paper to the inside part of the plate
- Press flower petals to the contact paper in circular pattern around the inside of the plate on the contact paper
- Hang your mandala up in a window to catch some beautiful sunshine
(Check out this post from A Little Pinch of Perfect for images!)
Spring Themed Mindfulness Bingo
Make a bingo board with things to check off that you see, hear, smell, feel and taste!
Springtime mindfulness bingo ideas:
I can…
- hear a bird singing
- see some geese flying in a “v”
- smell the fresh grass
- see a robin
- feel the breeze on my skin
- hear the rain falling
- smell the dirt
- see the snow melting
- feel the sun on my face
- hear the water running in the streets
- see a lightning bolt
- feel the soft grass under my toes
- see a flower blooming
- hear a wind in the trees
- feel the warm air outside
- smell the rain
- see the buds on the trees
- smell a flower blooming
Do a Slow Sun Salutation for the Spring Equinox
Especially around the Spring Equinox, yoga sun salutations are practiced by many in India and in Western cultures to celebrate the return of the sun to the northern hemisphere.
The number 108 is a spiritually important number in traditional yoga, mathematics, and spiritual religions: there are 54 letters in Sanskrit with a masculine and feminine version of each (equally 108 total). There are 108 holy sites throughout India, 108 volumes of a Buddhist spiritual book, and the sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth.
Many people choose to practice the sun salutation 108 times, or 9 times (time 12 poses which totals 108 poses). Feel free to do as many as your kiddos allow 😁
The tradition Sun Salutation for welcoming spring with yoga is as follows:
- Samastitihi (Hands at heart)
- Tadasana (Extended Mountain Pose)
- Forward Fold
- Halfway Lift
- High Plank
- Low Plank (Chaturanga, option to put knees down)
- Upward facing Dog
- Downward facing Dog
- Feet to Hands Forward Fold
- Halfway lift
- Forward fold
- Tadasana (Extended Mountain)
Get a printable version of our kid-friendly sun salutation (with EXTRA poses) here!
