The yawning symphony
| Objective: To wake up your creative and thinking energy by performing a song while yawning! |
Duration: 1 to 15 minutes
Material:
- Your body and mind
- A song
- A mirror
Instructions:
- Choose a song. To perform your yawning symphony, you must first choose a song to inspire you. What song do you like listening to most when you're feeling bored? You can play it or just have the tune in your head!
- Play the song. In front of a mirror, strike a pose as if you were a great singer. With your chest puffed out, your throat open, your arms out in front of you, palms up to the sky, perform the song while yawning! You can also enhance your performance by adding some great stretches, so you can yawn with your whole body. Your challenge: make it to the end of the song without actually yawning!
- Think about your experience. Was it easy or hard to not actually yawn? Have you ever heard that yawning is contagious? It's a really strange phenomenon, isn't it? It's like you can't control your own body! Can your body be bored even if you are not bored? Do you control your body... or does your body control you? Hmm... or maybe the relationship between you and your body has nothing to do with control...
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Bonus: Ask someone who lives with you to join the yawning symphony! You can also get in touch with someone by video conference. Take turns performing your yawning symphony. This time, your goal is to make the person in front of you yawn! Can they resist the influence of yawning? Together you can ask yourselves: Should we always avoid being influenced? Can imitating someone else be a good thing? |
| Tricks for tots: You can also compose your own yawn song! To warm up your vocal cords, try yawning and making the sound of different vowels: A, E, I, O, U! Yawning is usually seen as a sign of boredom. Are you turning boredom into a game? Can boredom be fun? Why or why not? |
Tips for teens: According to a Stanford University research team, oxytocin—a hormone that promotes empathy—makes us more susceptible to contagious yawning. So from a scientific perspective, sharing a yawn would be an example of empathy. What do you think... when we yawn, do we demonstrate empathy... or apathy? |
Share your creative reflections by sending them via email.
Include photos of your projects and notes of your thoughts, as well as your first name and your age!
