I love to use books in my yoga classes – to teach poses, as well as yogic concepts.  Here are some of my favorites:

This is a great introduction to meditation for kids:

This one helps kids talk about when they feel too busy and need some calm-down time.  Great way to talk about balance in life (parents in some my precious community need to read this one too!)

I love how this book, The Gift of Nothing, teaches about the value of just “being” with ourselves and our friends.  Great to read to illustrate what we are opening up to in savasana:

“Are You My Mother” is a lovely story for yoga – I usually tell it orally and switch things around to accommodate the yoga poses we have learned.  For example, “the little bird goes is at the top of a high TREE” and we all do tree pose.  “the little bird sees something that looks very very big, it is white and black and it says moooooooo” and we all do cow pose.

I usually do a Warrior Day where we learn Warrior Poses.  I use Yoga Joes for the kids to play with and I usually read Enemy Pie because it is all about a little boy turning his enemy into a friend, in a very unexpected way.

I usually use this book to talk about how practicing yoga and meditation help a lot of people find peace.  We talk about what is peace and other things that help us find peace in ourselves:

Here are a few books that talk about all the different feelings we have and how we go about making ourselves feel better.  I usually use a feelings jar during this lesson to show how meditation can help us calm our feelings.  You can find the feelings jar explained here.

These are beautifully illustrated child-friendly versions of traditional Buddhist stories and parables.

Earthdance is a beautifully illustrated, abstract book that includes some yogic type movements and would be a nice jumping off point for an Earthday Yoga class:

The Giving Tree is such a classic.  Use tree pose.  Talk about all that the earth gives to us and how we can be grateful.

This book has wonderful, creative ideas about practicing mindfulness with children!

Would love to hear what books you like to use to teach yoga, mindfulness and meditation!