Dalton News

Teacher Crystal McCreary’s Colorful Cards Help Children Practice Yoga and Mindfulness

Dalton Health Educator Crystal McCreary has reimagined her yoga teaching strategies in an accessible, fun, and child-friendly format.
Crystal recently partnered with Penguin Random House to publish Little Yogi Deck, a colorful card deck featuring simple yoga poses and mindfulness practices to help kids work through big emotions.
 
The mindfulness resource includes 48 cards that make important topics like strengthening attention, increasing self-awareness, and soothing the nervous system fun and easy to understand through pose exploration and movement like “The Wet Noodle,” “Toe-ga,” and “Grasshopper Flow.” The 48 card activities are organized into eight color-coded categories—anger, worry, excitement, sadness, joy, jealousy, shame, and peace—to give kids specific practices for different emotions and an illustration of the pose or activity.
 
Crystal said that this idea began early in her teaching career when she observed her students’ social and emotional needs as a first-grade teacher in Oakland, California.
 
“In those early years as a teacher, I turned to yoga and mindfulness for my own stress-management and well-being in a very consistent way. Eventually, I started experimenting with integrating a Tree pose here, or a mindful breathing practice there with my students at heightened times of day like after lunch, or at the end of the school day. I was struck by how immediate the impact was on their energy levels or their ability to focus.”
 
Later, Crystal shifted her teaching focus to support the children’s social and emotional needs. At Dalton, Crystal is a key member of the school’s Health and Wellness Program where she works with 6-12th grade students to help equip them with skills to mindfully navigate their social landscape.
 
Interested in learning more? Be sure to check out our upcoming Health and Wellness Community Workshops with Crystal to see the Little Yogi Deck in action.
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