Yoga can be a fun and healthy activity for the entire family to practice mindfulness.  The key to yoga with children is presenting the practice in a light and visual way.  Yoga is a great way to help children calm their bodies, quiet their minds and also gain strength and flexibility.

When we started yoga with our own children, we made it more exciting by allowing them to pick out their own mats (mats are not necessary, you can always use a towel).  We keep our individual mats in a basket in the family room and it always makes me smile when they go and get their mat to stretch out on their own.  We have found that if yoga practice is fun and more like play, my kids don’t mind doing it at all.

You do not need to be a yogi yourself or spend any money at all to start an at home yoga practice. I will be sharing some of our favorite FREE yoga videos, books and games in this post.  I urge you to try out the free videos. If you come at yoga with an open mind and playful spirit, your kids will be eager to join in on the fun.  Yoga is a magical way to calm the body and mind.

FREE Videos

Cosmic Kids is a website and YouTube channel filled with FREE yoga for kids!!  Jaime, your yoga guide, combines yoga with fun animation to engage kids of all ages.  The website is so easy to navigate and you can find practices by length, energy level or category.  One of her latest videos is Pokemon yoga, where she is trying to capture the different Pokemon!  She also has Star Wars, Frozen, Minecraft, dump trucks, animals, Harry Potter, pirates and so many more!! Cosmic Kids also has meditation videos.  This website  is a wonderful resource for all ages (and I love her accent).

Yoga with Adriene is a website and YouTube channel with FREE yoga for adults.  Adriene has been my online yoga teacher for the past 3 years and I absolutely LOVE her.  Adriene has a 30 minute video just for kids (CLICK VIDEO above).  This video is filmed in the park and shows that yoga can be done ANYWHERE!  I would recommend this video to ages 9+ Adriene also has a 10 minute video for the CLASSROOM that you could do at home.

Storyland Yoga was our go to yoga video when my kids were little.  They love the story approach and all of the kids featured in the yoga video.  There are two stories in this 52 minute practice (we use to do one at a time) and it combines video footage of the kids with animation.  It is a lot of fun and I would recommend it for children ages 3-8.

Books 

This is a favorite book in our house.  The story is about a class of children sharing what their parents do for a living.  Each child shares a different profession and the book takes you through 9 different yoga poses that relate to those professions.  It is a fun and active book to share with children ages 3-8.

This is another fun and active book to share with children.  It works through the entire alphabet and there is a yoga pose for each letter.  This is a great way for children to learn 26 different poses through rhymes and colorful illustrations.  This is a great book for ages 3 and up.

Yoga is a very relaxing way to help children get ready for bed.  This story helps your children to slow down and prepare for sleep.  The story takes you through 11 gentle poses that focus on stretching, breathing and relaxing.  The illustrations are beautiful and this book would make the perfect bedtime story for children ages 3 and up.  The author also has a Good Morning Yoga story (see it below)!

This is a beautiful picture book helps children learn the yoga poses of the Sun Salutation flow. This is a wonderful book to teach children this energizing series of poses that can help them start their day. This author also has the book Hello, Moon! A Yoga Moon Salutation for Bedtime (see it below).

This is one of five books in the I Am..series by Susan Verde.  This book encourages young children to explore the world of yoga through fun and simple poses.  We have all 5 books and they are well loved in our house. Peter H. Reynolds does the illustrations for this wonderful book series and he is one of our FAVORITE illustrators.

Games

This fun family game requires no YOGA or PIRATE experience.  Plays work to balance parrots on their body in order to earn doubloons!  Yogarr! is perfect for families, parties and can be played with children ages 4 and up.

The Yoga Garden game is for children ages 4 and up.  In this cooperative game, players are working together to plant a flower by nightfall.  Along the way, children will learn different yoga poses and get a chance to create their own.

Yogi Dice is a game that not only teachers children yoga poses but also encourages them to use their imaginations to dream up new poses.  This game is perfect for children ages 5 and up.

This game is a great way to introduce children to yoga.  This game contains 54 yoga poses and each pose has both a picture and written instructions for how to form the pose.  The game comes in a portable container, so you can keep it in your bag and play it on the go.  It is recommended for ages five and up but I have modified the game to play with 3 year olds.

This is not a game but can easily be turned into one.  This beautiful and sturdy deck of cards will illustrate and teach 50 different yoga poses.  We place all the cards in the middle and when it’s your turn you draw a card.  If you can complete that pose, you get to keep the card.  If you are unable to complete the pose, you have to put the card back in the deck.  The person with the most cards after 15 minutes, wins!  We have also used this deck for yoga scavenger hunts, a yoga pose of the day and I’ve kept them in my bag for downtime when we are on the go. This deck is great for ages 3 and up.