According to Safefood, four out of five children in Ireland do not get the recommended 60 minutes of exercise on a daily basis, and it is no surprise that as a result, one in four children is carrying extra weight.
We are well aware of how hard it can be for busy parents to ensure their kids are active every day, and with this in mind, we have devised our top tips for getting children moving in ways that are easy to organise, easy on the wallet, and easy to maintain.
The Top 10 Tips suggested below are designed to be fun, fast and free and can involve the whole family. Children of all abilities can take part, and the objective isn’t to find the best, the fastest or the strongest child – it is merely about getting having fun and achieving a healthier, more active lifestyle.
Top 10 Tips to get the family exercising:
1. Musical Creepy Crawlies – lie on your back with your arms and legs wiggling in the air. When the music stops, jump up. The last one up is out.
2. Obstacle Course – get the whole family running, jumping, hopping and crawling. See who can complete it the quickest, and challenge yourself to beat your own time.
3. Penguin Shuffle – stand side by side, with a bean bag or something soft resting on your feet. Shuffle across the floor in a penguin-like fashion. The first person to the other side wins.
4. Tug-Of-War – try different teams among the family to see which combination is the strongest.
5. Hit the Deck – using a deck of cards, one person selects a card and the family do a different activity for each suit.
6. Tightrope Walk – find a line or put out a rope that you can walk along as your tightrope. Walk one foot right in front of the other without falling off the line or rope. See how many times each person can walk the tightrope without falling off.
7. Freeze Tag – when the person who is “It” tags you, you must freeze in your exact position. Frozen people can be freed if another player crawls through their legs. The game ends when everyone is frozen.
8. Cotton Wool Race – each player starts with a bowl of cotton wool balls. At the end of the garden is an empty bowl for each player. Using a spoon, players must move all the cotton wool balls to the empty bowl, one at a time.
9. Family Frisbee – get the family together in the garden for a game of Frisbee
10. Blob Tag – when the person who is “It” tags someone, they join hands and chase the others together. Eventually you have the whole family (the Blob) chasing one or two. The game ends when the Blob has caught everyone.
