Keep Kids Moving This Summer!

Your kids are home from school.  You’ve played all the board games you can.  And, maybe it’s even a rainy week.  What can you do to burn off a little of that excess energy building up in both you and the kids?  KEEP MOVING, of course.

You probably have items in your home that can help create a playful, imaginative workout.  Here are some ways to help kids stay active with household items:

Painters Tape

Put a strip on the floor—young enough kids can use it as a balance beam.  They won’t be balancing, but they can try to walk along it and stay on the line.  You can make it straight or zig zag it.

If you have a hallway, use painters tape to turn the floor into a hopscotch.  Swap a bean bag for the rock you’d use outside and now your child can hop their way down the hall.

Or, in the hallway, put tape at different intervals and different angles to create a “Mission Impossible Laser” hallway.  Your child has to try to get from one end to the other without touching the tape.  This one is easy to make easier or harder depending on your child’s age.  You may even find you want to get in on the fun.

Note: Tape matters.  Painters tape is much less likely to do damage to your floor or walls than other types of tape.

Socks

Most of us have socks at home.  Ball some up and play hot potato.  The main goal-pass the potato as quickly as you can.  It’s great for building hand-to-eye coordination and reaction time.  It’s not ideal if you don’t have a designated play area and you like your lamps and other nice items in your home.  So just be careful, because balled up socks can knock things over.

Balloon Toss

To keep the house a little safer—think balloon toss.  It might be a little easier than hot potato for young kids, but you are still working hand-eye-coordination.  And you can gamify it.  How many times can you toss the balloon back without dropping it.  This game gets addictive quick.

Animal Walks

You can always put a timer on and have your child mimic the moves of animal for 30-seconds.  They can do little bunny hops, big frog hops, or waddle like a duck.  Tap into their imagination by naming an animal and having them decide how that animal will move.  Or they can move a certain way and you can guess what animal they are trying to imitate.

This or That

If you need some down time and need to set your kids up with a way to move, try This or That videos for kids workouts on YouTube.  These are usually cute, fun exercise programs where kids are shown an image like a giraffe or a zebra and they pick one.  Moments later two exercises appear on the screen.  If they pick the zebra, the do the exercise behind that image.  Of course, they can always switch if they don’t like the move (I’ve seen my nephew swap after his choice).

There are endless, creative ways to KEEP MOVING.  It’s important to teach kids from a young age that movement is play.  It can be silly. It can involve games.  They can even make up their own moves.  Options are endless.  And, as their parent or caretaker, getting kids to move is a great outlet for a child with a ton of energy.  It’s a win-win.

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