Musical Mats can be played two ways:

Version One

Each child starts a mat. We sit down with the children and choose a pose to work with. I find something like triangle or butterfly work well. I play the music and when the music stops the children jump onto a mat and get into the pose that we decided on at the start.
Usually I set two rules:

1. The children are not allowed to touch the mats while the music is going.
2. The children have to choose a different mat each time the music stops.

Version Two

We spread out more mats than there are children. We sit down and choose a pose to work with. I find something like triangle or butterfly work well. I play the music and when the music stops the children jump onto a mat and get into the pose we decided on at the start of the game. Any child without a mat comes to the front and helps me push the button and decide who got onto a mat first. A random mat is then taken away. Again the children are not allowed to touch the mats while the music is going and if two children are on one mat and one of them with not move to another mat then both of them are out.

The second version can sometimes bring up some problems as children start to compete with each other, though sometimes a yoga class is the best environment with which to deal with this issue.

The first version I often find children can get a little bored with, they often ask for “outs”. It is up to you as a yoga teacher as to which version of the game you decide to go with go with.

Other children’s yoga games you can play are … Giants treasure, Yoga poision ball, Triangle Tiggy, Upset the crocodile, The knot, I went to a yoga class and I did, Yoga heads