Daily Activity Ideas

Here’s a few ideas to get your daily activity:

• Can you walk or ride a bike anywhere close instead of driving? Then do it!

• Try playing a favorite family sport outside instead of watching it (football for example).

• Make an obstacle course! It’s easy to find things around the house to add a little variety in physical activity. Old bottles or containers? Jump over them or run around them. Old hula hoop? Jump over them when they are laying flat on the ground. Yard sticks, rulers, or tape? Mark off different areas in the yard to do different activities (run to the first marker, bear crawl to the second marker, do 10 jumping jacks at the third marker, and army crawl to the last marker!) You can make it into a competition, do it just for fun, or time it and try to make personal or group time improvements!

• Have a dance party! Is there a song your kids always sing along to when the radio is on? Turn up the volume and have them show you some dance moves for a impromptu workout! Quicker types of dancing can burn a few hundred calories/ hour.

• Go on a walk. You can take you dog out for a walk, get some family time while being active, or stroll around the neighborhood and see what’s new! If you’re afraid your kids won’t enjoy it, try making it a game. See who can find the biggest house, play I-Spy, or try a memory game.

• Have old skates around in your garage or old sports equipment like baseball bats or hockey sticks? Use them! If you don’t have all the right equipment for a particular sport, come up with rules for a new sport!

• Take a hike in a nearby park! Find local parks and playgrounds here.

• Throw around a baseball or a Frisbee!

• Have some space to run around outside or at the park? Play tag! -freeze tag, elbow tag, turtle tag, or make up your own version.

• Try a new sport and look up rules online of how to play! Don’t have all the equipment? Be creative and alter them, kids love making rules! Try or alter one of these for starters: basketball, football, hockey, tennis, water polo, volleyball, golf, baseball, track, soccer, lacrosse…

• Is it raining or too cold to go outside? Be active inside! Try an exercise video; do dance or exercise movements during commercials; climb the stairs; exercise in place; do some yoga and relax!