With the summer ending and children going back to school, this means they will be spending more time sitting down in class or doing homework, so it is even more important to find ways of keeping physical activity in their lives. Although organized forms of physical activity, such as sports or classes in a particular activity like dance or martial arts, are great, they are rarely done every day and children need to be active every day. So it is imperative to find unorganized ways of keeping them active.
More and more studies are showing how regular physical activity can help kids not only improve their health and fitness, but that it is extending into so many other areas, such as improving their grades and self esteem. So it is crucial to make sure our young ones have the opportunity to be active everyday.
Spending some time at a park can be an excellent way to fit in some activity. Climbing monkey bars and ladders, balancing on timbers, running in the sand, etc. can all be great and safe ways to build strength and cardiovascular fitness in kids. Obviously they need to be supervised, and if the parent joins in with the child, then both are able to get a great workout.
Kids love to race, so why not use that to motivate them to move? Whether it’s by running, going through a made up obstacle course, crawling, crabwalking, etc., this can be done in a group, or on their own, or just have them race against their time on a stop watch. It’s more important to give attention to them having fun, playing nicely, and doing things with proper form, than achieving fast times.
Games of low organization, such as tag and hide and go seek, among many others (there are plenty available online if you search for them), also offer fun activities that will keep children active and interested. You can find ones to suit any location and number of kids.
Depending on your area and distance from the school, walking kids to school and back home can help give them some activity as well as an appreciation that a vehicle is not always needed to travel somewhere. Something many of our children are not exposed to.
These are just some simple and general ways that children can be physically active on a daily basis. They are solely limited to your imagination. In fact, ask yourchild(ren), and I’m sure that you’ll get many more answers.
