As of March 11th UNICEF is estimating that around 300-500 million children are home from school as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. With so many children home, and communities increasingly being asked to stay home as much as possible keeping our kids active becomes increasingly challenging. Today we’re going to pull together a few suggestions.
Obstacle Course
Creating an obstacle course is a great way to get your kids moving and get them thinking. What things can be (safely!) climbed over, jumped on, crawled under and so on. The first time or two you might need to be the one setting up, but soon your kids will be able to customise and create their own. A great twist is to be different animals, monsters, story characters etc as you go through the obstacle course too!
Spiders Web
Have some tape? Perfect! Create a spiders web using a doorway and take turns throwing paper or pom-pom ‘flies’ and seeing how many you can get to stick.
Follow the leader
Follow the leader is another great way to get your children to move – model create a short sequence such as; 5 star jumps, run on the spot, hop 3 times, touch your toes
Then your kids copy it. Next time, let them create the sequence. Add some silliness for extra fun such making silly sound effects, doing funny animal impressions and so on.
Cosmic Kids
We love the kids yoga app, Cosmic Kids. Whilst not technically screen free the stories she uses to get kids moving are fun and variety of moves is impressive. There are a few videos on YouTube if purchasing the app isn’t possible.
GoNoodle
Another great tool for getting your kids moving is GoNoodle – they have songs and actions ready to play for kids of all ages and with great variety. You can sign in as a parent to take a look at everything and choose the best options for your family.
Throwing Games
Both our kids love throwing games so from bean bag throws to playing catch we try to include these a few times a week. If you have young kids you can add some colour matching in and then for older kids you can add fun ways to increase the difficulty such as further distances, trick shots and so on.
Balloons
Who doesn’t love balloons? Especially when chasing them, batting them with paper plates, playing catch, etc. are all great ways to get everyone up and moving!
