Volcano Pose Helps Students Erupt, Cool Off

Maya McFadden Photo

First graders erupt from mountain pose at Lincoln Bassett.

Lincoln Bassett School first graders took a break from their usual class instruction to witness a volcanic eruption. 

Luckily, the eruption took place during a yoga lesson where the students locked their fingers together, pointed them to the sky in a mountain pose, and then made them burst apart into what resembled an explosive geological wonder. 

Bassett’s tamed volcanic eruption was a result of the Newhallville elementary school’s biweekly student instruction provided by Full of Joy Yoga, which aims to teach youth about mindfulness, breathing exercises, and better connecting with one’s body. 

Full of Joy Yoga founder and yoga instructor Lani Rosen-Gallagher joined Bassett’s K‑4 classes on a recent Friday to take a yoga break during their day. 

Rosen-Gallagher returned to Bassett this year in-person to continue to provide educators and students with the personal tools to create relaxation habits. 

Rosen-Gallagher led two half-hour lessons with first and second graders. 

Criss-cross yoga sauce,” Rosen-Gallagher said to instruct students to take a seat to start the lesson. 

Put your hands to your heart,” Rosen-Gallagher instructed next before the class moved into making mountains” with their hands while focusing on taking in deep breaths. 

Turn on the kindness and goodness in your hearts and picture what color that is inside you,” Rosen-Gallagher said. 

Rosen-Gallagher reminded students of their wise owl” and bulldog” brain parts, which were the names they gave their prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.

Rosen-Gallagher teaches students the two parts in conjunction with teaching about mindful breathing exercises to help students learn about regulating their emotions, which she described as associated with the amygdala, also known as the bulldog brain.” 

When you want to calm your bulldog you can try to breathe so you can use your wise owl and make good choices,” Rosen-Gallagher said. 

Rosen-Gallagher taught the first and second graders a new breathing exercise called Take Five.” The group practiced the exercise with Rosen-Gallagher by holding out a closed fist then taking a deep breath and counting to five on their fingers then exhaling while counting their five fingers back down. 

You guys can do this anywhere you want. If you’re angry or sad in class or at home you can do the take five under your desk,” Rosen-Gallagher said. 

Shake out all the things we don’t need right now,” Rosen-Gallagher said to the class while shaking her shoulders, hands, legs, and head back and forth.

Later in the lesson, while standing in their own bubbles, marked by circle cutouts on the floors, they stretched up on their tippy toes then all the way down to the floor. 

Mountain,” the students said aloud with Rosen-Gallagher . 

Mountain,” they repeated it a second time while keeping their palms together and pointing them to the sky. 

They then erupted with Volcano!” causing the class to burst their hands apart to resemble a volcanic explosion.

First graders make the letter L with their bodies.

Bassett School first-grade teacher Darcus Henry watched as his 16 first graders joined in on their 30-minute yoga lesson. 

Every other week Henry’s first grade class is able to relax and practice their breathing before their math lesson thanks to the yoga lesson. 

The students are typically excited for their yoga lesson, Henry said, and afterwards return to his classroom calmer. On off weeks when yoga isn’t offered, Henry has his students watch guided meditation videos in the classroom to wind down before math. 

Calming GoNoodle videos work, but this relaxes them more because they just love the instructor,” Henry said. 

On the few occasions Henry has transitioned his students into a math lesson without meditation videos or Yoga, he said, his students are rowdy and lack focus on their work. 

Lani Rosen-Gallagher.

This year is Rosen-Gallagher’s third year of yoga instruction at Bassett School. Her instruction is supported by Clifford Beers’ Trauma Coalition.

She worked in three schools remotely over the past two years through a Google Classroom. 

Towards the end of the 2021 – 2022 school year, Rosen-Gallagher did her first lessons at Bassett in-person and hosted them outdoors. This year she’s returned fully in-person and spends every other week traveling throughout the school to meet the teachers where they’re at and teach the students with breathing and mindfulness exercises. 

Rosen-Gallagher has partnered with NHPS since 2015 at schools like Celentano Magnet School, Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration, Worthington Hooker, and Edgewood School. She also partners with several preschools in New Haven. 

Getting into New Haven Public Schools was my ultimate goal,” she said. 

Rosen-Gallagher founded Full of Joy Yoga in 2003. For five years Rosen-Gallagher was a first grade teacher in Brooklyn and would incorporate yoga into her daily instruction. 

Students learn about the wise owl.

I do this as much for the teachers as for the students,” Rosen-Gallagher said. 

When partnering with schools Rosen-Gallagher encourages teachers to participate in the yoga lessons to later use techniques in the classroom.

Her lessons aim to help students and educators create healthy and mindful habits and recognize in themselves how they’re feeling in a moment, and know they have the tools to calm themselves. It gives them agency.” 

Rosen-Gallagher provides each participating classroom teacher with a tool bag of props, a breathing card deck, a breathing ball, and chime to use in their classrooms.

As a result of the Covid pandemic, Rosen-Gallagher said, while working with students she sees that each student carries trauma upon trauma now.” 

She added that yoga breaks allow students to focus better in the classroom. Most times it’s not the teacher that’s an issue, its just distracted students needing that time to have breaks and get their energy out,” she said. Teachers usually notice when they have breaks they’ll get an extra 5 or 10 minutes out of the students.” 

First grade teacher Darlene Walden agreed with Henry that the dedicated yoga time helps her students to return to their classroom calmer and more focused. 

Walden’s 18 first graders joined the yoga lesson with Rosen-Gallagher. 

Walden, who has taught in New Haven for almost nine years, said since the return to in-person instruction she has started to implement brain breaks into her daily teaching. 

She said she has noticed a huge difference in her classroom instruction since she’s incorporated social emotional learning (SEL) lessons into her daily teaching. 

It helps them to be in tune with their bodies and describe how they’re feeling better,” she said. 

She said SEL instruction makes her class more calm and understandable for everybody.” 

Assistant principal Eva Schultz.

Bassett Assistant Principal Eva Schultz oversaw the lesson by Rosen-Gallagher as she traveled between the auditorium and classrooms to work with Bassett’s K‑4 students.

Schultz, who has worked with NHPS for 16 years, began at Bassett this year as the assistant principal. 

When she learned that Rosen-Gallagher had the interest in returning to the school for another year with fully in-person instruction she described the partnership as a breath of fresh air.” 

She looks forward to informing the K‑4 students every other week when they arrive at school in the morning that it would be a yoga day.” 

We work these kids so hard because there’s a lot of gap to close so they deserve to have these breaks,” Schultz said. 

Schultz described one of Bassett’s school-wide focuses as self-reflection to help build student character. 

These character-building opportunities are a part of education,” she said. 

This year the school has also committed to offering each of their grade levels at least two field trips that are outside the school building each month. 

The K‑6 school currently has 263 students enrolled this school-year. Schultz said the small community-school atmosphere is what allows Bassett to thrive and focus on the whole student. 

Schultz added that the school had expanded its after-school programming to grow self-reflective students” through extracurriculars and mentorship opportunities three times a week. 

So far this school year Bassett has only had one suspension to avoid keeping students out of school. When disciplinary action is needed the school has students self-reflect during the school day with a mentor. 

Making letters with body's challenge.

The class danced and shook out their jitters throughout the lesson.

The students then revisited previous lessons where they learned to do star and tree poses. They then learned a new pose resembling an elephant. 

The students listened to Rosen-Gallagher as she instructed them to widen their stances, bend over at the waist and lock their fingers together to use as a trunk. 

Now use your hands to get some water and spray your friends!” Rosen-Gallagher joked with the students who swayed their trunks” back and forth. 

The students also played a game before the end of the lesson in which Rosen-Gallagher challenged them to use their bodies to make a letter of the alphabet. 

When Rosen-Gallagher held up a card with the letter X, the students replicated the letter with their bodies.

Now what pose does this remind you of? It looks like something we’ve already learned,” Rosen-Gallagher said. 

The standing star!” one student called out. 

At the end of the lesson a second grader called out to Rosen-Gallagher before heading back to class: You’re the best teacher ever.” 

See below for other recent Independent articles about teaching, reading, and working inside New Haven Public Schools classrooms.

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