Healthy Children have Fun with Exercise

Superheroes, fairy tale and cartoon characters can be an inspiration for imaginative play and large motor exercise with young children. Just think up a story and go outside for an hour of daily exercise.

  What is needed:

 park equipment, nature path, beach, YMCA, or children’s museum

What to do:

 Young children enjoy exercise more when it’s a fun game or imagination is involved.  They can imagine being stiff legged robots, galloping horses, soaring birds or characters with magical super human powers.  Phil, a personal trainer from Superior Fitness and volunteer in the Big Brothers program, sent these exercise ideas to promote heart health, balance, strength, flexibility, and endurance.

   To prepare, Phil suggests doing a some stretching first.Then act out a story your young children know from a book, legend, fable, movie or tv show. Perhaps there is an animal to rescue, but there are all kinds of obstacles in your way. There may be an invisible line, overturned log, or 2X4 to walk on. Play “Follow the Leader” to avoid getting stuck in the muck or some other danger. Throw a magic stone or stick at a tree to break through an invisible barrier.  Jump over a large stone or climb on a tree stump to look around. Gather sticks to make a safe path to hop on, or write a secret message with shapes and letters in the sand. Jog from one object to next, crouch behind it, and jog again.

  Grandpa Scott takes his grandchildren to the beach to skip stones in the water. Sometimes they pick up large rocks to make towers. They walk along the beach and hunt for rocks, sticks, and other beach treasures for art projects. While walking along a river path, children can drop a leaf in the water and race it down stream.

  Just about anything can be arranged for an obstacle course young children can walk, run, or ride around the yard. Set up a board as a balance beam. Roll a beach ball around, play soccer, catch, shovel in the garden, or sweep the sidewalk. Lay a rope on the ground for children to jump over or walk between.

   There are many active games to play. Young children love to play “What time is it, Mr.Fox,” “Red Light/ Green Light,” and many kinds of freeze or flashlight tag games.  When someone is tagged, the person says a cartoon or story character, color, letter, names a state, spells a word, counts, or anything else you’re working on.

How Does this Help my Child?

  Healthy children exercise for one hour every day. They use the large muscles of the arms, legs, and trunk to jump, hop, skip, kick, throw, catch, dance around, balance, push, pull, or jog.

For more math activities see the authors’ book “Learning through the Seasons” online at: http://www.grandparentsteachtoo.org/ and listen to this and many other activities at WNMU Audio Podcast 

Illustration: Mark Nowicki
Photo: Kock, Matthew. img_0929.jpg. June 15, 2010. Pics4Learning. 5 Jun 2013