The children, aged 4 to 6, utter three versions of shalom (peace) before the yoga class begins. At first, they chant a mantra for inner peace. The second time, while standing in a circle, they chant for peace among themselves, their classmates and other members of their families. Finally, they are told to chant while thinking of someone whom they would like to bless with peace. The class then begins with a warm-up that would make members of an adult yoga class proud.

Ronit Eisenberg, director of the Reidman Yoga School, teaches the class. Eisenberg's classroom in Kfar Sava is equipped with yoga accessories, like Tibetan singing bowls, lavender pillows, colorful blankets and scaled-down yoga balls for children.

These preschoolers are not the youngest children performing yoga: Unborn children may also take part. Nearly every gym, community center and studio in Israel offers yoga for pregnant women. Those who prefer to rest on the couch during pregnancy may begin after giving birth. Those same venues offer Baby Yoga classes, in which mothers and infants train together.

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Children's yoga classes are less common, but they are fast becoming a staple extracurricular activity, like gymnastics, basketball, ballet and ceramics. Children's yoga, designed for kids ages 2 to 12, is unique and unrelated to traditional forms of yoga for adults - Iyengar, Bikram, Sivananda, among others.

From Boston to Tel Aviv

Gal Zeibert, 7, of Moshav Bnei Zion, began practicing yoga when she was just four. "When I lived in Boston, I attended yoga classes with my mom, and when we returned to Israel, I began to take a yoga class here," she says. "We also had a weekly yoga class in kindergarten." She has opportunities to practice yoga at home, as well. "My grandma is studying to become a yoga instructor, and my cousin is also doing it, so we sometimes do yoga at my grandma's house or here at home." Her favorite part of yoga classes is hearing the stories that accompany yoga positions, "and the bowls, and the dolphin, frog, dog, cobra and turtle positions. And the fun feeling you have after class."

Yoga is present in every corner of Meirav Katz's home in Moshav Herut. "Sometimes I come home and find Yael [12-years-old] doing exercises before she begins studying for a test, or after a hard day at school," Katz, 42, says. Katz began teaching her daughter yoga at the age of four. "I am a yoga instructor and there were always books about teaching and learning yoga, at home, with pictures of all kinds of bizarre positions," she laughs.

Yael says, "I started because my mother taught me, but now I do yoga because I like it. Sometimes, I do it alone. Sometimes I tell my mother I want us to do it together, and sometimes, she invites me. I am occasionally nervous before yoga, and, afterward, I am relaxed and feel good." Most of her friends take art and tennis lessons after school. "Now, I want to start taking tennis, too," she says.

A pillow for your nerves

The youngsters in the Kfar Sava class have no plans to take up tennis just yet: After their peace mantras, they warm up to increase the flexibility of their tendons, muscles and joints. They perform the traditional Sun Salutation exercise that begins in a standing position, with closed legs and erect posture. Then they bend forward, jump down on all fours, lift their heads into a cat position, lie down on their abdomens and lift their upper torsos into a cobra position, return to the all-fours position, jump forward into a frog position, stretch forward, stand up and lift their arms and then drop their arms at their sides.

This exercise is not easy, and the children repeat the series of movements five times. Each yoga pose represents a specific animal, and the sequence produces a story in which the children create the form of an elephant, while using their arms as a trunk; the elephant climbs, while the children make climbing motions with their feet; the elephant sees water, the children's "trunks" are stretched forward and down, and the elephant drinks, as the children bend forward.

After the warm-up, the children learn to perform exercises with precise attention to detail: They sit in a circle watching Eisenberg demonstrate the exercises, stage by stage, as she models how to move from one motion to the next.

At the end of the lesson, they do a final exercise and then lie down to relax on mats. This is where pillows and blankets come in: Children who prefer to snuggle up are handed blankets. Children who have a hard time keeping their eyes closed for 10 minutes receive small, lavender-filled pillows that they place on their eyes. Eisenberg walks among the children, playing songs on Tibetan bowls. The metal bowls produce complex, resonant harmonies and ethereal, prolonged notes. The children appear addicted to the way the bowls quiver when they are placed on their bodies.

At the end, the children sing, "thank you." "I sing, 'thank you,' to the pupils and the pupils sing, 'thank you,' to me, because without pupils, I cannot be a teacher, just as without me they cannot be pupils," Eisenberg explains.

"When so many adults feel the positive influence that yoga has on their bodies and their souls, they want to pass it on to their children," Nettie Steiner, says to explain the phenomenon. Steiner is a children's yoga instructor from Moshav Ta'ashur, near Sderot, and teaches in Be'er Sheva, Lehavim and Meitar. "Between the ages of 2 to 6, they perform 'yoga for preschool' exercises that physiologically support the children's ability to move using maximal energy," she says. "But the lessons also teach them how to relax, and children in this age group are inexperienced at doing that, despite the fact that they need it. In today's reality, children lack two things that yoga provides - correct movement and relaxation. The movement is taught in a way that will support the children in the future."

Katz says that the yoga she performs with her daughter has another advantage: "It is a wonderful addition to our connection with one another. In addition to talking about school, friends, clothes and homework, we share an experience in which we laugh, talk and discuss."