The holidays are here and it is a marvelous time of the year for sweet treats. Pies, cookies, and candy are everywhere, and it all smells so good! Plus the kids are home from school, and are missing that set time they get at school to make sure the expel their energy. Substitute that time they would have doing exercise and athletics, by engaging them in at least twenty to thirty minutes of active family time.
Here are twelve days of fitness for Christmas to do with your children! These workouts are easily adjustable to suit different ages, and can be made to work in different spaces, even if you don’t have a lot of room.
- Find a great playlist and dance! Get moving and shaking to a great soundtrack, a holiday album,or your favorite upbeat soundtrack. Do the twist! Try some pirouettes if you have space. Just keep the kids moving to the beat, and having fun.
- Do a simple yoga flow. Do some age-appropriate yoga poses to improve flexibility. To keep it festive, have the children come up with new names for the poses. Tree pose? Try Christmas tree pose! Bow pose? Make it Santa’s sleigh!
- Try hosting the Superhero games! Pick a favorite toy or stuffed animal and have your child rescue it! Run around – in a clear space – to “fly”. Do push-ups to move to push away a boulder. Do some controlled high kicks and punches, and be a hero!
- Go fish! Assign an exercise move to a different playing card. If you have a traditional deck of cards, make each suite something different that challenges different parts of the bodies. Make aces running in places for sixty seconds. Should the kings be 10 push-ups or 10 toe-touches? It is up to you. Don’t have a deck of playing cards? Make your own cards out of construction paper or printer paper as a fun craft!
- Take a family walk. This one is an oldie, but a goodie. Put on your sneakers, and take a walk around your neighborhood! A local park is also a great option if time and weather permits.
- Balloon games! This one is particularly useful if you’ve have any left-over balloons from birthday, holiday, or school parties. Blow up two or three balloons and challenge your kids to stop it from touching the ground. Implement soccer rules for an added challenge – no hands!
- Obstacle course. Set up an obstacle course using what you have around the house. Get creative with hula hoops, painters tape, or furniture arrangement to encourage your kids to crawl, jumps, and dance on their tip-toes.
- Set up some plastic cups, get a squishy ball, and play bowling! This one is easy and fun!
- Twister! Whether you have the original board game, or you make your own version out of construction paper and some cardboard, playing for twister can get your children stretching, holding poses, and laughing. Plus, like the card game, if you don’t have the board game, make your own as a family craft.
- Put on a show! Let your child’s imagination run wild with this one! Perform a ballet. Stage a play. Be a circus performer, or a karate star. From building a small stage, to the actual performance, this activity can keep the kids moving while inspiring creativity.
- Go to the races, and get moving in different and challenging ways. See who can make it to the end of the hallway faster by crab-walking, crawling like an inchworm, or even getting in a pillowcase and hop in a potato-sack race.
- Do a scavenger hunt, with a fitness twist. Hide a list of items, and have your child search for those items, and when they find an item, have it correlate with an exercise. Pennies could equate to ten jumping jacks. Building blocks are ten toe-touches. This activity gets them thinking, exercising, and exploring.
These activity ideas only begin to scratch the service of fun ideas to keep your kids active during the holiday breaks at the end of the year. Take ideas from this list and make them your own. These activities can be altered and customized to be appropriate for children of all ages and abilities.
Thank you for following the Stretch-n-Grow blog this year! We hope you enjoyed our posts and will join us next year for more happy, healthy, EXERciting fun!
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!
See you in 2020!
By: Bethany Verrett
