Iowa 1st Graders Use Yoga to Get Calm, Focus

First-grade students at Neil Armstrong Elementary School file into the school gymnasium, but there is no raucous game of kickball or other high-energy activity on the agenda.

Instead, the students arrange their beach towels on the floor as mellow, new age music plays softly in the background and they prepare to strike a pose.

The first-graders are taking yoga lessons as part of a program initiated by school counselor Shelley Klaas, who said she got the idea after attending a yoga workshop last summer in Minneapolis.

"I came out of it feeling quite calm and thought, `This is a great idea for kids,'" she said.