We want Cosmic Kids to be for ALL kids, so we're over the moon to share these 9 Tips and Tricks - all designed by kids and for kids with mobility issues - to help make our films more accessible, engaging, useful and of course FUN for any kids who want to take part.
We hear from families, teachers and therapists all the time, that kids with mobility issues are using our films. We hear about kids using yoga to help them get stronger or as part of their physio plans. And we hear about kids using our Zen Dens and Peace Outs to help them overcome some of the emotional challenges they face. We also hear that not of our films work for everyone, and that loads of kids - or more accurately mobility geniuses - are coming up with brilliant strategies to adapt our films to work for them.
So, we put a call out to children who adapt Cosmic Kids, and asked them to share their ingenious ideas with the rest of the world!
Massive thanks to the 40 families and therapists who gave their ideas - what a community of generous and clever folks we have around us. We asked the questions, created some pretty slides, and checked in with some physios and mobility specialists to make sure they were happy, BUT - all the thinking has been done by kids and for kids.
NB! These hacks are not just great for kids with mobility issues, they’re great for all kids to help them think differently about movement and how their bodies work.
And you know what we really love about this? Kids who change things up to suit their bodies are not only making themselves stronger, they are practising cosmic levels of critical thinking, creativity and problem solving when it comes to their bodies. We think they have physical literacy as a superpower!
Accessibility across the Cosmic Kids Universe
The great thing about a ‘hacks approach’ is that it means we can make the whole Cosmic Kids library more accessible, rather than just making a couple of specifically accessible films. This is important because it means kids can still choose the films they want to watch, and we know choice is a brilliant motivator in terms of kids taking part in yoga and mindfulness and sticking with it.
That said, we are doing lost of other work to make sure we also take responsibility for adapting films where helpful. Alongside these mobility Tips and Tricks we’re regularly increasing our library of seated, signed and subtitled films (check out the links for playlists), and we’re currently working with the amazing team at The Loddon School to make our films more accessible to autistic kids, and neurodiverse kids more broadly. If you have requests or insights to share to help us do other things to help make Cosmic Kids accessible, useful and fun for ALL kids, please do get in touch.
We hope kids, parents and teachers find these Tips and Tricks useful. Please share them, and of course adapt them further to work for you! We’d love to hear how you get on.
We can’t talk about accessibility without talking about financial accessibility. We don’t want there to be any barriers to kids accessing yoga and mindfulness through Cosmic Kids. That’s why we make the majority of our films free to access on YouTube. We can only do that because of the support and generosity of the lovely people who subscribe to the Cosmic Kids App. It’s also the only place you can watch every film we’ve made, and they’re all ad-free!
You can sign up to our 14 day free trial here!
