Tot & Preschooler Yoga Teacher Training
Our training enables Yoga lovers and early childhood educators to support mobile babies through preschool-age children children to build motor skills, language acquisition, and social-emotional development while connect to their bodies in a loving way. Learn to create playful, age-appropriate lessons incorporating Yoga poses, dynamic movement games, breathing exercises, rhythm, songs and stories for little ones and parents/caregivers to do together in group classes or one-on-one settings.
Breathing Space trains child educators and yoga lovers to teach life-changing social-emotional and self-regulatory skills through Yoga. Our child-development focused approach enables instructors to confidently adapt playful, empathetic lessons to their students’ unique needs and interests and have more fun and less frustration as they build their dream program or career.
Yoga & Early Childhood Development
Yoga appeals to the natural skills, abilities and interests of newly mobile babies and young children as they explore their world, enhance their well-being, and develop body awareness, self-confidence, and language skills. You will deepen your understanding of child’s physical, cognitive, social and verbal development as it relates to yoga for children from approximately 10-months through 4-years.
Crawling babies and new walkers have different needs and interests than their pre-mobile baby or older, faster, talking toddler peers. Tots are no longer willing to lie on a yoga mat but not yet able to follow verbal directions or engage in imaginative play, so what do you do with them in yoga class? This training focuses on teaching children in the transition between babyhood and toddlerhood.
As toddlers become more confident movers and their language acquisition and expression dramatically expands toward the end of their second year and into their third, their play and learning styles shift. Preschooler yoga incorporates much more imaginative play and narrative. Postures begin to resemble adult yoga poses but motor skills are still a major focus.
Yoga Philosophy and Parenting
First and foremost, Yoga is a philosophy for life. Because classes for toddlers and young children are often taught in a parent-child format, you have two sets of students. Learn how to teach lessons that reinforce yogic values for both children and caregivers.
Who Should Take This Training?
Anyone interested in offering an enriching experience for babies and caregivers. Activities are appropriate in groups, one-on-one, in early childhood education settings, and incorporated into adult-focused classes or support groups where babies are present. The training is appropriate for yoga instructors, of course, but also early childhood educators, medical professionals, physical, speech-language, or occupational therapists, family counselors, parent educators, and parents.
At least a year of personal yoga practice, including exploration of yoga philosophy, is recommended prior to taking this training. For prospective trainees with less experience, recommended reading and practice resources will be provided.
Trainees enrolled in our certification course (pending – eligible for Yoga Alliance certification) must demonstrate competence in yoga philosophy, postures, breath exercises, and instruction principles. However, certification is not required and all are welcome to attend our live trainings and benefit from the material.
Self-Paced and Live Experiential Learning
Almost 20 hours of self-paced content includes child development information, several full-class videos of your trainers teaching tot and preschooler yoga, lesson planning, sample class plans, and photo resources for dozens of activities, and more.
During our live workshop hours, we will thoroughly examine and practice the poses and class flows so you can embody the the yoga you are teaching. We’ll also review and discuss the self-paced content. Completing the background modules in the self-paced content before the live workshop hours will ensure you get the most benefit from our time together.
By completing the training and optional certification process, you will be prepared to offer group classes in multiple formats for children from 10-months through 4-year-olds and caregivers or to incorporate yoga into your work with young children in any educational setting. You can help young children learn healthy habits and social-emotional skills that will last a lifetime.
Cost:
Registration costs $495 and includes:
- 20+ hrs of self-paced training modules;
- 14 hrs (2-days) of live interactive training with Jen Mueller, Breathing Space founder, and Jessica Lagarde, lead instructor and program administrator;
- A printable 100+ page manual;
- Lifetime access to the online resources;
- A Breathing Space Family Yoga t-shirt.
Register for individual modules or pay for all 4 at once for 15% off.
*Note: 8 of the self-paced hours are identical across age ranges. Trainees only complete them once.
This training is offered back-to-back with Breathing Space’s Baby Yoga & Play Teacher Training. Register for both to train to teach newborn-age 4!
Upcoming Trainings
All 2023 trainings are offered in a hybrid format, incorporating self-paced online material and live workshops focused on experiential learning and practice teaching. Trainees who complete all modules and complete the certification process may be eligible to register as a Yoga Alliance Register Children’s Yoga Teacher (RCYT).
Next trainings:
- Saturday-Sunday, March 18-19, 2023 – Sat 8am-6 pm, Sun 9 am-2 pm – Capitol Hill, Washington DC
offered immediately after our Baby Yoga & Play Teacher Training - Tuesday & Wednesday, June 27-28, 2023 – 9 am – 5 pm – Capitol Hill, Washington DC
offered as part of a 5 day immersion of all in-person components of our training, newborn-tween - Saturday-Sunday, Sept 17-18, 2023 – Sat 8am-6 pm, Sun 9 am-2 pm – Capitol Hill, Washington DC
offered immediately after our Baby Yoga & Play Teacher Training
Note: While there’s some logic to studying the material chronologically, the in-person workshops can be taken in any order. Trainees who enroll in the full training have 2 years to complete all the modules.
Continuing Education & Certification
Training participants will have the opportunity to become certified Breathing Space children’s yoga instructors. All hours are eligible for Yoga Alliance continuing education. We are in the process of getting approval as a YA Children’s Yoga Teacher Training School to offer a YA 95 hr RCYT. Breathing Space trainees may also apply the training toward the RCYT credential through the Children’s Yoga Teacher Training Collaborative.
New info coming soon: Looking for somewhere to stay near our DC training venues? Check out our housing recommendations.
About your Trainers
Jen Mueller (MPM, YA E-RYT 200, YA CRYT, CIEM, IBCLC) has been teaching yoga to families and children since 2008. She has trained with Budding Yogis, ChildLight Yoga, Itsy Bitsy Yoga, Cosmic Kids Yoga, Yoga 4 Classrooms, and YoKid to offer classes to families and children of all ages. Jen’s work with children inspired her to complete adult yoga teacher training at Willow Street Yoga in 2010 and train in Prenatal Yoga with Janice Clarfield (Urgan Yoga) and Jennifer More (Dolphin Method).
Before turning her attention to yoga full time by founding Breathing Space, Jen spent more than a decade working with non profit organizations in everything from daily operations, event and volunteer management, and finance to national policy advocacy and media relations. Jen holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts and a Master in Public Management degree from the University of Maryland.
Jen is a Yoga Alliance® Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RTY 200) and Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher (RCTY). She was a children’s yoga teacher trainer with Childlight Yoga / Childight Education Company for 8 years and co-created their Yoga for Babies & Toddlers training. She is also a Certified Educator of Infant Massage (CEIM) through Infant Massage USA and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).
Jen understands that good teachers are life-long students and has long worked to build professionalism within the children’s yoga field. Jen is the former executive director and emeritus board member of the National Kids Yoga Conference.
Jessica Lagarde (RYT 200, RMP) has been teaching creative movement in the metro area since 2005 and is passionate about helping children discover and explore their bodies and the world around them. She was trained by Joye Newman, MA to teach preschool creative movement for Kids’ Moving Company, a Bethesda-based creative movement studio. Her 200 hr adult yoga certification is through Ignite: Yoga and Wellness Institute. In 2017, she completed her Baby, Toddler, and Children’s Yoga Teacher Training through Childlight Yoga and has worked with Breathing Space Family Yoga ever since. Jessica teaches classes for infants-tweens, directs BSFY yoga camps, and does much of the behind the scenes business administration.
In addition to working with children, Jessica is a registered massage practitioner, with advanced training in CranioSacral Therapy and infant massage instruction and certification in prenatal massage. She has practiced massage since 2006 and taught massage as part of Potomac Massage Training Institute’s professional training program. She maintains a private massage practice through Shine Massage & Wellness in College Park, MD.
Outside of the movement space and massage room, she enjoys cooking, knitting, gardening, coffee, reading non-fiction, and exploring the outdoors with her daughter.
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