Arbutus Elementary Students Center on Yoga

Every day since January, a group of students met without fail at 8:30 for a half-hour of yoga. They learned breathing exercises, and worked on their strength, flexibility, alignment and balance.

Physical education teacher Connie Lemon, who led the group with the assistance of yoga instructor Leslie Tinios, said that the daily exercise has had a beneficial effect on the 17 students from all grades who participated in the Morning Eagles yoga program.

In many households, mornings are a frantic ritual of dressing and packing lunch followed by a mad rush to the school bus. The yoga classes give children some time to decompress and mentally prepare for the day, Lemon said.

"It really helps them calm down from a hectic morning and focus," she said. "Yoga helps with those transitions. There is research that shows that it helps."

Lemon said she got the idea of offering a morning yoga session after taking a class taught by Tinius last summer at Community College of Baltimore County's Essex campus.

The Morning Eagles program will be offered again in the fall, and Lemon said that the school is considering other ways of incorporating yoga techniques into the daily classroom routine.

"The breathing especially helps calm the children down after lunch, which seems to be the most chaotic time of the day," said kindergarten teacher Marilyn Flook. "They'll walk down the hallway from the cafeteria doing their breathing. I'm doing it too, since I need it as well."

Daniel Michaud, father of a fifth-grader, Jet, said that yoga has been very good for his son. "It gives him a way to de-stress and get ready for school," he said.