Mindful Tots: Animal Antics…Focus and fun for little ones
This sweet, bright and boldly illustrated board book is a winner in bringing accessible mindfulness to the very young. The dialogue is simple to follow and encourages imaginative play to create a sense of happiness and focus. I found it to be an excellent warm up for tots yoga which led into some wild animal antics of our own. In this day, it transferred very easily as an online activity that I was able to share with my granddaughter,too. I love the straight forward approach using movement and imagination to bring mindfulness and fun to little ones.
Niños Mindful: Rest & Relax/Descansa y relájate
Mindful Tots: Rest & Relax…Sleepy time for little ones
Rituals make bedtime fun and productive. Following a simple routine of relaxing the body, mind and energy patterns can help tots settle down and get ready for sleep. I especially love the bi-lingual version of this story. The simple rhymes in both English and Spanish will assist all children to appreciate diversity and can plant the seeds for a broader worldwide view for peace, love and happiness for all. Three cheers! The illustrations by Rocio Alejandro are so adorable and the children just emanate sensitivity, cooperation and inclusion. Highly recommend!
Thank you to Whitney Stewart for sending me copies of these books. All opinions expressed are my own.
Gilly the Giraffe Self Esteem Activity Book: A Therapeutic Story With Creative Activities to Help Children Aged 5-10 by Dr. Karen Treisman
This book puts the B in Brave! Such a useful and accessible book. Just reading the book is inspiring and has helped me to focus on how I can facilitate a positive learning environment for the students and the teachers by incorporating the story and ideas into my in-school yoga classes. The story is one that flows well by adding yoga poses, breathing activities and short meditations and the added applied practices offer many useful ways of building self-esteem activities into the classroom.
Dr. Treisman brings another part of the world to many readers-with new words and ways. This is a great book about diversity. It is colorful, eye-opening and totally relateable. The story promotes creative problem solving, by offering a view from another angle. It is like a game of Statues, where one person sets themselves up as a statue; the next person walks around, looking at the shape from different angles, and then fits themselves into the structure, which is a fun way of promoting this way of thinking.
I highly recommend incorporating these activities throughout the day. Practicing increases personal growth and strength.
Anther great book by Dr. Triesman is Presley Pug, check out my review here.
Thank you to JK Publishing for sending me a copy of this book. All onions expressed are my own.
Adorable, diverse illustrations connected to beautiful simple breathing prompts. From A-Z, easy to follow breathing prompts, each one aimed to elicit a calming response. This book is a great one for young children and it can be used more widely- any teacher could offer up one of these breathing practices at the beginning of each class. Students can encouraged to note the ones they like the best to keep in their tool boxes of practices they know help them to feel good, calm and in-control. Calming breaths can be used to bring focus and attention in a classroom as well as a home or office but are also great to combine with a yoga pose! Great accessible ideas to incorporate into today’s mindful classroom.
Fun, accessible introduction to the power of the breath!
This is a wonderful seasonal book for preschool aged children that does not contain a holiday theme but instead is based on the time-honored winter pastime of skating on a frozen pond. The rhythmic flow is smooth and hidden in plain site is a lovely book about trying new things, learning that falling down is part of the learning process and that being active is a wonderful way to spend time as a family. Extra kudos for the sweet pencil and watercolor illustrations.
This will pair well with a youth yoga class to prepare the body for skating-figure skating, hockey, speed skating- so many options. Lots of fun balances and even some partner poses! Practicing yoga in a classroom and doing partner and whole group poses is a great way to build community and help harmonize the group energy.
I love the color palette for these nostalgic gauche painted illustrations which perfectly compliment the poem that accompanies John Langstaff’s Christmas Revels. Right off the bat, the cover lures you into the book with the with the fiery orange and yellow hues surging out from the surrounding pitch black. This is a holiday book that takes the reader back to earlier times. It ties together the many diverse celebrations of winter with festive tree and candle lighting to the rituals of the solstice in winter, a time of year when light dims early and people feared the impending darkness and wanted to encourage the light to come back. The poem highlights the many similarities of our winter celebrations across the world-removing religion and replacing it with a history of the earth, discovery and the celebration of life. We are not so different is a resounding message.
Thank you to Candlewick Press for sending me a copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Who Do You Think I Am? By Dawn McLaughlin; Ill. Hannah Rowe; Positively Publishing Kids
I love everything about this sweet book of soul-accepting affirmations accompanied by beautifully rendered pastel pencil drawings of children being everything that they can be. It is 100% a feel good book that embraces diversity, acceptance and creates an endless stream of possibilities a child can be from their moods, feelings, sensations and dreams. I can’t get enough of the doe-eyed children illustrated by Hannah Rowe, a young artist. Each unique set of eyes tells their story. Everyone who reads this book will be able to connect with the characters. I love this concept of empowering children with tools for creative self-expression and success. It is sure to aid in creating more mindful, resilient and positive people. Highly recommend.
Thank you to the author for sending me this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
For more information about me, please visit alwaysbedancing dot com
Dr Karen Treisman is the prolific author and creator of this wonderful therapeutic story designed to help start conversations with children about coping with big feelings and how to find inner peace and a sense of overall calmness. This therapeutic story about the universal commonness of having feelings and expressing emotions is full of kid friendly examples. At the heart, this story explains, through the eyes of an adorable pug name Presley, that although each person’s experiences are unique that every person has these experiences which makes the journey to finding peace within the turmoil all the more accessible.
This story on one level should be read by caring adults, as it clearly presents a picture of a young child struggling to come in control and it is also a perfect book to be read aloud. It is sweet and interesting and offers many fun and easily reachable activities to help kids cope with their emotions and find calm, especially the idea of a ‘mind retreat’ – an imaginary safe space where he can relax. Even an imaginary place can offer comfort and security a personal space to relax in and find ones calm. The sweet drawings by Sarah Peacock enhance the story and I can see many kids wanting to snuggle up with Presley for comfort!
With the assistance of the creative activities and photocopiable worksheets, children to explore the ideas raised in the story. Growing up takes practice and that is good, because by practicing something, we get better at it. Getting better at something leads to happier feelings and a stronger sense of self-worth. The book also presents practical tools for parents, teachers, caregivers and other professional who support children aged 5-10.
This book will come in very handy with my in-school yoga and mindfulness program. as having applied practices to bolster learning is extremely useful and fits in very well with the classroom environment.
I have a copy of this wonderful book to giveaway. Please comment on this post and share on twitter. Be sure to tag @dr_treisman @JKPBooks @alwaysbedancing. Winner will be selected on September 30th.
Thank you to Jessica Kingsley Publishing for sending me this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
For more information about me, please visit alwaysbedancing dot com
Really fun, quirky rhyming book with a solid description of anatomy of the skeleton, that is perfect for the budding scientist. It brings new words and a deeper understanding of the skeletal body in a fun, non-scary way. The book is very clever and step-by-step reconstructs a pirate skeleton all the while imparting scientific knowledge and answering questions like “what is inside me?” and “what do these body parts do?” This is a great first book of anatomy for teachers scientists, doctors, yoga teachers and is fully accessible to very young children with its endearing, friendly, humerus (ha ha) skeleton and beautifully detailed underwater scenes. This is a great book for the Halloween book shelf and to celebrate “Talk Like A Pirate Day.” I love the big bold colorful illustrations by Bob Kolar and there’s a wonderful skeleton poster inside the jacket. This book is a winner from front to back!
I highly recommend it and cannot wait to share it with my littlest yoga students as we bend stretch, and strengthen our skeletons!
Thank you to Candlewick Press for sending me this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
For more information about me, please visit alwaysbedancing dot com
Mateo Finds His Wow A Story Of Wonder And Gratitude by Gabi Garcia (Illustrations by Charity Russell; Skinned Knee Pub.)
Gabi Garcia has done it again! Mateo Finds His Wow is a beautifully worded and illustrated story about a child in a funk who, through simple mindful attention, discovers the “wow-ness” of life in the moment. Ms. Garcia’s books fill an important niche in children’s mindfulness books as her books are so well crafted and sincere that they fit the needs of both adult’s and children’s connection to the stories.
This book packs a ton of wow! Be prepared to be positively changed by this wonderful book of awareness, curiosity and the amazement of the little things in life. The book is accompanied by bright wall charts that are helpful reminders of how to find the ¡WOW! in life.
A special note about the lovely and beautifully detailed illustrations by Charity Russell. They match the story perfectly and I really love the eye catching and fun fonts. 3 Cheers!
Thank you to the author for sending me this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
For more information about me, please visit alwaysbedancing dot com
This is a wonderfully helpful book that is passionately written from deep in the soul of the author. Alex Koster openly shares her knowledge on how a mindful approach to life can bring about positive family, community and societal change in this increasingly digital, impersonal, self-absorbed age. The simple but effective strategies and techniques she offers give parents and educators the mindfulness tools they will need to “put their air masks on first” and then be able to help their children become confident, happy, compassionate adults.
The main message I took away from this book is that by living a more aware, kind and joyful life, life itself will be more enjoyable. Therefore, I will be a more loving and lovable person who is then confident, happy, and compassionate enough to help my children and for those who I care for. Sounds like a win-win to me!
I highly recommend this wonderful book. It’s heart centered approach is just what is needed to diffuse the stress of today.
Thank you to the author for sending me this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
I Am Uniquely Eve 