Good Night, Animal World

This title is one of about 10 books in the Kids Yoga Stories. These books integrate yoga poses into stories that provide information, about animals, other countries and often present educational concepts such as shapes, colors and seasons. Some titles in the series teach life lessons such as embracing diversity. The author, Giselle Shardlow, uses her educational expertise from her Masters of International Education; her eight years of experience teaching grades K-5 in Guatemala, Australia, Canada and United States; and her certification as a yoga instructor to bring multiple layers of learning to each book. Each title is a rich experience, creating various educational applications for both school and home. The yoga component itself is a wonderful tool. Many educators and parents use yoga to help children calm themselves. As an adult who has recently started yoga, I truly understand how effective yoga can be to reduce stress. While concentrating on maintaining the yoga position, breathing, and tightening or softening appropriate muscles, the mind is so busy it cannot focus on the stressor that occurred. Yoga is an easy and effective tool to help children in dealing with their emotions and stresses. Each book contains helpful end notes to guide the parent or educator to safely and successfully introduce yoga to children and making it a more meaningful and enjoyable experience for everyone. But in addition to the yoga component, the stories present information about animals, seasons and concepts such as colors. For example in Good Night, Animal World introduces the reader to children from different parts of the world. Each child has a name common in their country and says hello in their native language. Each page features an animal for a different part the world and the child from that region demonstrating the pose named for a characteristic of that animal. In addition the book contains a map depicting where the animals live. Also included are the flags for each cou...

Great way to introduce yoga to a toddler. I love doing yoga and it was something I have always wanted to introduce to my child, although I wasn't really sure how to go about doing it. I recently bought this book for my daughter, who is 20 months old. She absolutely loves it. It is perfect timing as she is loving animals and saying good night to everything at the moment. She really enjoys copying me do the yoga poses (or easier versions) of it and the book is becoming part of our bedtime routine at her request. I am enjoying sharing yoga with her and I think this is a book that will really grow with her. It looks lovely. My only minor criticism is that I wish the paper was of a higher quality.

Adorable and fun! I found the book adorable with such cute illustrations! You read along and say goodnight to animals from different parts of the world and learn different yoga positions on each colorful page. I'm sure any kid would enjoy reading the fun story and learning yoga poses from the book. A fun story and a great teaching tool as well. I highly recommend this picture book to all parents and teachers of active little toddlers. Happy reading!

Monkey and I were already big fans of the Kids Yoga Stories, so we were excited to read another. If you are unfamiliar with these books, what makes them unique is the author’s ability to weave yoga poses into an engaging children’s story, complete with visuals, so that kids (and adults!) can move along with the characters in the stories. In Good Night, Animal World children are taken on a bedtime tour of the animal world, saying good night to furry friends as they do relaxing poses that help them wind down for the night. The text and the movements work in concert to help body and mind gently tune into nighttime rhythms. A bonus for fans of the series is that you will see many of your favorite characters, like Sophia and Luke! Monkey loves this book, and I feel only a little sneaky using it to help him fall asleep :) Read Bedtime Books for the Active Child

With two preschool-aged boys, bedtime in our house is anything but calm and quiet. There is typically a lot of running, jumping, tackling, and yelling that goes on right up until the moment they finally crash into their beds. With its simple story and colorful illustrations, Good Night, Animal World is the perfect bedtime book for preschoolers. My boys couldn’t roll their yoga mats out fast enough when I brought out the book before bedtime. They loved learning about new animals from all over the world and practicing the yoga poses that went with each one. I loved having a way to spend some quality time with them at the end of the day that allowed us to move and play together without the typical rough housing that typically happens before bedtime. From a developmental standpoint, the poses in Good Night, Animal World are great gross motor activities for targeting flexibility, balance, coordination, and strengthening. The kids loved the balance challenge of perching like an Eagle and the flexibility challenge of stretching into Pigeon Pose. Downward Dog is always one of their favorites – they were excited that there was a pose in the book that they were already familiar with. They love this pose because it lets them pretend to be dogs…as a therapist, I love watching them work on strengthening those arms and hands! In Good Night, Animal World, Giselle has expertly placed poses with calming sensory effects (e.g. rocking side to side in Happy Baby Pose, resting in Child’s Pose) toward the end, after the more physically challenging poses to help kids calm their bodies down before bed. My boys’ favorite part of the book was the map at the end, where they could search and find where each animal lives. They also loved that there was a list at the end of the book with each animal and its corresponding pose, so they could go back through and practice the sequence one more quick time before bed. As a mom, it was cool to see how Good Night, Animal World appealed to my boys’ l...