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Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People book review

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0811826856_normOffice Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People
by Darrin Zeer

Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People is a collection of simple yoga stretches designed for those who are desk-bound the majority of the day.  The stretches, as asanas as they are known in Sanskrit, will help not only physically, but will also help bring more calmness, ease, and focus into your daily work life.

Office Yoga provides asanas for your morning routine (”Morning Eye Openers”), through your return home (”Evening Balancers”).   The section at “At-the-Desk Relaxation” provides helpful tips for keeping your hands and wrists relaxed through Keyboard Calisthenics, as well as self-massage techniques and other relaxation methods.  The “Afternoon Invgorations” chapter gives some tips on perking up about the time that you are ready for that 3 p.m. coffee or chocolate!

Scattered throughout the book are helpful tips on diet and other tips on decreasing stress and increasing happiness.  Best of all, the contents include a Quick Help Guide for common workplace ailments like stiff neck and shoulders; eye strain; low energy; and sore lower backs so you can quickly find the stretches to help with your pain.

Find Office Yoga on Chronicle Books’ website, or your favorite bookshop.

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Lesson Plans – Moss and Lichen Unit Study

I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]