Previously, I wrote about my weight loss journey and overall, journey to be healthy. My children are an extension of me and therefore my journey is their journey. What I eat, how I exercise and the way I view the world affects them. This is why it is extremely important, for me, to set a good example in as many ways as possible. The way I see it, when parents set good examples the children learn what the parents does. Children usually do as they see. I love reading, for example, and I continually saw my mother read and encourage us to read, instead of watch television.
Part of learning how to keep the weight off, and being healthy, involves activity. Summertime activity is much easier for me to accomplish with my children because of the nice weather. We can go swimming, run in the sprinkler, enjoy the beach and find rocks, play soccer and the list and can go on and on. Winter time activity or cold fall days are a little more difficult. I live where it begins snowing towards the end of October and it snows through March (notice the date on the picture above). This means I have to get creative with indoor activity. My family enjoys a lot of outdoor time during all seasons but with freezing cold temperatures and below zero wind-chill, we are limited some days. With winter just around the bend I don’t have much time to plan, maybe 42 days?
Here are some tips for being active this coming fall and winter when the days outdoors might be limited:
1. Make an indoor obstacle course. I love this activity but have to warn you, your kids might get wild! We use all sorts of objects for the kids to have to go around, jump over, go under, etc. This is a great activity is also great for teaching positional words like over and under. We do this to music and if the music is fast we go fast. If it is slow we go slow. The children really enjoy this and get creative at helping to create the obstacle course.
2. We go on a moon walk. Using all of the pillows in our home we cover the living room floor and the put sheets over the pillows. We make astronaut helmets out of paper bags to reuse the bags! The children pretend they are on the moon and when we are done we have a gentle and fun pillow fight!
3. Dancing with home-made instruments. We take rice and beans and make shakers with old plastic bottles. The kids shake them and dance all over the house to the music. For other great homemade instruments visit, Family Fun and you’ll you could have a whole band!
4. Musical Shapes. I’ve cut out a variety of shapes and we place them all over the living room floor. When the music starts we have to walk from shape to shape. When it stops you have to be on a shape or you are out. This is an activity we usually do when friends are over because the more the merrier.
5. Follow the leader. We walk all over the house doing whatever the leader does and sometimes this can make all of us out of breath, depending on how crazy the leader gets!
For some great ideas I suggest visiting Time Magazine’s article about fitness and children. It has lots of facts about childhood obesity and fitness. Healthy U also lists 101 tips for getting your kids moving and staying fit, so there aren’t any excuses for not having an ideas now! What are do you do to get your kids moving?
Original post written for 5 Minutes for Going Green
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Great ideas! I’m not looking forward to being stuck inside, but this has given me a few ideas of different things to try and stay moving. Plus, my guy is finally ‘old’ enough to do this stuff with!
Great ideas Sommer!
My kids are getting older (13, 11, and 9) – but there is this one game we’ve been playing indoors for many years now. I call it garbage. I’m the garbage man, and they are the trash. The sofa becomes the garbage can. They run around, I try to catch them and throw them into the garbage (onto the sofa). They love this game – even our 13 year old does yet! And I’ll tell you what, it becomes a workout. Actually, I can’t carry a couple of them anymore – they’re just too big. But it still seems like we’re all sweating by the time we’re done (and they never want to stop). It’s a great winter-time activity.
Enjoy the last few weeks of nice outdoor weather!
We have dance parties. Crank up the radio and dance!