Whether you are trying to get a young one moving and stretching or feeding the sports obsession of a bigger kid, I’ve got something for you!
The Yoga Game
by Kathy Beliveau
Simply Read Books
ISBN: 978 1 89747 672 7
Little kids need some work on their gross motor skills and on their paying-attention skills, and yoga makes for a nice activity to help in both these areas. But how to get a kid interested in something that is complex for some adults, not to mention how to answer the questions about the names of the poses? How about making a game of it? For each of the 16 poses, there is a description that works well to point out the attributes that inform the pose, and then a chance for the child to guess what it is. Try this one:
One foot stands planted on the ground,
and in my mind I send roots down.
Balancing, my arms stretch high,
like branches reaching to the sky.
What am I?
(I am a tree)
I especially like that it brings it into a child’s schema – animals and the natural world are familiar, and this approach is more their speed (and mine) than the more traditional focus on looking inward. I’m thinking I’m going to use this with a group of preschoolers or a kindergarten class this spring for a stretch after story time, but it’s also a fun way to get you and your kid trying it out.
WeirdZone: Sports
by Maria Birmingham
OwlKids
ISBN: 978 1 92697 361 6
From solo to team sports, from water to winter, there are some weird things going on in the sporting world, and this book takes a good, and very entertaining, look at them. Grouped by type of sport and broken into easy little chunks for browsers, this is a great light little read for a kid who is not a big reader, but loves funny stuff, sports, or trivia. Filled with quizzes, glossaries, related science facts, records, and how-tos, there are sidebars and tangents aplenty to keep kids amused and fuel their curiosity – but these easily sharable bits mean that you should be prepared to hear all about this stuff, too!
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