Miranda Pederson/Daily NewsXavier helps Beth McGrew with a yoga pose.

It was a regular game of tag as five children with seemingly boundless energy ran back and forth, squealing loudly, Friday in a room at Hopscotch’s PlayPlace.

It wasn’t long before Beth McGrew, the only adult in the room, alerted them to an upcoming change.

“You guys have two minutes to run and dance,” she said.

Two minutes later, five small pairs of sock-clad feet ran to mats, sat down and extended their arms to touch their toes.

“Are any of your feet stinky?” McGrew asked jokingly as the children laughed. “I think my socks are.”

Little Yogis, a six-week series of yoga classes for children ages 2 to 5, had begun. The classes meet from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Wednesdays and Fridays at Hopscotch’s PlayPlace. Children can also be registered for single classes instead of the whole series.

“We teach balance, coordination and body awareness,” McGrew said. “We’re helping to introduce kindness and compassion to ourselves and others.”

McGrew, who has been doing yoga for 10 years, said she enjoys teaching the children.

“I have two children,” she said. “It’s something I can do with them.”

The classes consist of warm-up stretches, a book and a brief period of total rest at the end, known as savasana.

“It’s not always a book about yoga, but we do poses based on the book,” McGrew said. “If there’s a dog in the story, we do downward dog.”

On Friday, however, the book was about yoga. In the book “My Daddy is a Pretzel: Yoga for Parents and Kids,” kids in a yoga class talk about their parents’ jobs. For each job, there is a yoga pose. For example, one child’s parent in the book is a gardener. The children in Hopscotch’s class stood on one foot while bending the other leg at the knee and placing that foot at their knee in tree pose.

“I’m doing it!” some of the children said excitedly.

The pose was hard to hold for very long, though, as 3-year-old Xavier Byrns took a tumble onto his mat.

“It’s not a big deal to fall down,” McGrew said, reassuring the boy. “We just have to get back up.”

Shortly after doing more poses, including a downward dog tunnel in which some children did the pose while others crawled through the tunnel made by arms and legs, the children went to their mats to lie on their backs, rest and be quiet for one minute. McGrew signaled the end of the minute by tapping a bell, which each child got to tap as they sat quietly at the end of class.

“We bring our palms together and say namaste,” McGrew said, placing her closed palms close to her heart to signal the end of class.

Chris Byrns of Bowling Green said his son, Xavier, has taken four Little Yogi classes.

“My wife and I were looking for an outlet for him. He loves coming to Hopscotch,” he said. “He does (yoga moves from class) at home on his own.”

Lissa Cooke of Bowling Green said her daughter, Lydia, also enjoys the classes. Cooke works at Hopscotch’s PlayPlace.

“She’s never taken any type of class. This is more freeform,” Cooke said. “She’s starting preschool in the fall. This gives her a chance to follow someone else’s direction.”

When asked how she felt about the class, Lydia didn’t pause.

“I love that!” she exclaimed.

Cooke said she is happy that the class is available.

“There are not a lot of things geared toward that age group,” she said. “This gives them a chance to do something fun and active at the same time.”

— For more information or to register, call 842-0420 or visit www.hopscotchsplayplace.com.