East Meadow students write books on yoga

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As part of a school-wide initiative at McVey Elementary School, in the the East Meadow School District, second-grade students learned about mindfulness and yoga before publishing their own books on the subject.

Music, gym, computer and library teachers each created specific curricular interpretations of mindfulness and yoga in their classrooms. Library teacher Ellen O’Neill introduced yoga poses to students through characters and animals in books. Students continued to personify animals that could be represented by yoga and vinyasa poses.

Music teacher Samantha Schick played calming sounds through the piano, guitar and other instruments as part of a seated guided meditation to further the unit. Physical education teachers Michael Simone and Deirdre O’Regan also held yoga lessons and mindfulness activities during their classes.

Following a lesson on the basics of story structure with Mrs. O’Neill, students began developing their story before going through the writing processes of illustrating and editing before publishing. Computer teacher Randy Frances helped to improve the overall structure of each student’s story. Frances presented a lesson on adjectives that were used to describe characters and their personalities.

Each student’s story and adjoining illustration were put together to create a published book for each class. The books have been made available in the school’s library.

—Brian Stieglitz