JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Noah Rader, 10, has a birthday in December so he's allowed to run around and slap his fellow fifth-graders' feet as they do the "candlestick" pose during yoga at Price's Fork Elementary School. Teacher Jenna Swann has been teaching yoga to students at the school this semester, bringing a growing trend in physical education to Montgomery County. "I try to make them all feel like they can succeed at it," Swann says.

BLACKSBURG -- By the fifth grade, you'd expect students to be beyond the basic "meow like a cat" or "moo with the cows" instructions of kindergarten.

But teacher Jenna Swann says the onomatopoeia is a fun way to teach students more than vocabulary. She said her cow and cat sounds can help them learn relaxation, balance, confidence and discipline.

Swann has been teaching yoga, along with its "cat" and "cow" poses, to fifth-graders at Price's Fork Elementary School this semester, bringing a growing trend in physical education to Montgomery County.

"I try to make them all feel like they can succeed at it," she said.

Swann doesn't lecture on the spiritual meanings of yoga or have students hold challenging, twisting poses for extended periods.

"It's done through play," she said.

For example, when the 10- and 11-year-olds lie on their backs and stretch their legs to the sky in a right angle for a "candlestick" pose, she asks anyone with an upcoming birthday to circle the gym and slap their classmates' feet. To stretch afterward, she tells them to "wiggle around."

Swann went to the Asheville Yoga Center to get her certification to teach yoga to children.

The North Carolina center is one of the growing number of sites that teach children's yoga to classroom teachers.

In January, the center had 27 classroom teachers learning to instruct their own students on the breathing and stretching techniques, said Jane Anne Tager, a certified children's yoga instructor.

Tager said she got interested in children's yoga to help her 3-year-old daughter's asthma. She trained with Indiana-based YogaKids, which has since instructed more than 100 classroom teachers in the concepts in its "Tools for Schools" model, as well as sold thousands of videos.

"I think it's becoming a burden on the classroom teachers on how to incorporate more physical activity in their own class because they're [the children] not getting it outside the classroom," Tager said.

That's where teachers such as Swann come in.

While getting her certification, she received a $1,200 Star grant from the Montgomery County school system to start a full-time yoga program at Price's Fork Elementary. The money bought mats and equipment for her class and other fifth-graders.

"I always push the limit a little," she said. "I want to bring the world to my class."

In the past, Swann has taken students river rafting and rock climbing. With yoga, she said she saw a way to combat obesity while helping the children relax and earn confidence.

She often uses partner yoga techniques that have students support each other. They'll hold hands or interlace each other's feet without any gripes.

"They have a confidence from yoga, and I can see it," Swann said.

Swann gave students a survey before class to gauge their interest in the activity. Many said they weren't interested but would at least try. She said she saw that some students were nervous, some because of their body shapes.

Now, some children ask her to check out yoga mats to take home. Parents are asking her about DVDs they can use as a family.

Gregory Ashelman, 10, was one of the wary.

After a few months on the mat during the weekly hour-long lessons, he said he's hooked. After dinner at home, he usually tries to practice at least three poses, he said. Sometimes, his sister, who attends Blacksburg Middle School, joins him.

"Yoga is good and it relaxes your muscles and you can do things easier," Gregory said after a workout recently. In the past decade, schools across the country have been using yoga basics and complete classes for physical education instruction and to help students relax before taking standardized tests.

In its infancy in public education, the spiritual practice was criticized.

"In the beginning, families that had strong religious backgrounds, other than Hindu, were a bit wary of it," said Tager, who has worked with children's yoga for about 10 years.

Tager was met with skepticism much like Tara Gruber, founder of California-based Yoga Ed. The program offers a 36-week curriculum in yoga. When she started in 2002, parents worried she was teaching her children the spiritual practice. But since then, more than 100 schools have adopted the lessons. And more children's yoga instructors are being registered with groups such as the Yoga Alliance and YogaKids.

"It teaches them to slow down their breaths and how to take deeper breaths," Tager said. "I think people are seeing it as more of a strength exercise."

She said she's now starting to see a small network of classroom teachers start after-school yoga clubs and parent-teacher groups clamoring for yoga family nights.

It's the ideal setup for public schools to incorporate the ever-elusive parent involvement and follow through with some physical education, Swann said.

She said she hasn't heard any complaints from parents, and she hopes to get her own after-school club going.

"I think that some people don't understand," said Vanessa Wigand, the director of health and physical education at the Virginia Department of Education. "Yoga can be taught in a variety of different ways, and it can be taught in a spiritual way, but that really is not a public education thing."

The exercises are a good way to start building students' motor skills early, and she said a host of high school electives teaching yoga are in place across the state, but could not say just how many.

The update to physical education could take off in Montgomery County, too.

In November, Swann led a workshop for teachers countywide on ways to use yoga with students.

Patricia Gaudreau, the county's supervisor of science, health, physical and driver's education, said other classroom teacher have expressed an interest in using yoga in their classrooms.

Gaudreau and Wigand both said yoga can meet all the components of fitness required in the state's physical education standards.

For now, students are up for the challenge.

"Sometimes it's a little hard, but always fun" said 11-year-old Nate Hager. "It's more relaxing, and really just different" than typical physical education games.