Katie's Karate Class

I will use this book in my elementary Health classes to supplement my lessons on feelings( scared, worried). A great way to demonstrate how to calm down and overcome your ears.

I am both a children's yoga teacher and a mom of a young child. I love using stories in yoga classes as a way of sequencing classes for younger children. As a mom, I enjoyed reading this book with my daughter. It teaches about anxiety and overcoming fear, and there are a few places where you can get up and move around. Unfortunately, it was less useful in my yoga class because there were so few actual poses in the book. There are multiple pages that tell a great story but do not include associated poses or movements. Because I only have 30 minutes with my yoga class of about 14 5-8 year-olds, sitting and listening to a story was much less enjoyable for them than moving while listening to (and being) the story. If you have a longer class period and are open to having more reading time, then it could work.

Thank you for the privilege to review Katie's karate class. It was embraced by my 5 and 6 year olds and we talked about the reality of fear in our everyday lives. It opened-up the opportunity to discuss and look at other options to handle and deal with everyday fear. My class also related very well to the strong and grounding poses.

I love that this story, with beautifully done, colorful illustrations brings to light the feelings that children can have when approaching something new. I also like that it is such a universal fear that makes the text highly relatable. As a teacher of language learners, I feel that this text could help my students see that all children encounter fear about new things, such as they may have fear about being in a new place, learning a new language. I find it interesting that the yoga poses weren't specifically laid out as much as in the other, also beautifully done, Yoga Stories but I also like that teachers and children can feel the freedom to move with their thoughts and really focus on how the story feels as they make connections.

I found this to be a nice book for my elementary age students. It brought about wonderful conversation and they were eager to share their experiences. It was not so much of a physical yoga experience...which I do prefer in a yoga class.