At-Home Activities for Active, Healthy Kids

Oh, to have a dollar for every time we hear our child complain, “Mom, I’m bored…” As parents, we’d all be rich!

Fighting the boredom blues, especially when outdoor options may be limited, can be hard. Kids need activities that challenge them both physically and mentally so they can grow and learn.

Physical activity such as exercise enables healthy kids to build stronger muscles and bones, and it is good for overall well-being and mental health. Activities that combine physical and mental challenges are especially good kid exercises – things like golf, gymnastics and yoga.

Getting Your Kids to Move About at Home

It’s easy to depend on sports or your child’s gym class at school to provide them with the movement their bodies crave, but what about the days that you’re hanging out at home? The good news is, not all activities need to be organized sports or otherwise structured in order to get your child up and moving – imaginative play and spontaneous dancing are also great exercise for kids.

Cooking and healthy snack-making also gets kids up and around the kitchen, incorporates science and math lessons, and results in a tasty treat for the family to enjoy!

Kid Exercises to Move the Body

The next time you’re stuck at home with a cranky kid or a surly teen who is complaining of boredom, try some of these fun activities…

• Build a fort. Rearrange furniture, turning couch cushions into walls and draping sheets overhead. Let your children’s imaginations go wild and see what they come up with.
   
• Create an obstacle course. With a little masking tape and some ingenuity, you can turn your house into an obstacle course. Map the course with arrows taped on the floor, and have kids hopscotch through hula hoops, tunnel under tables, and hop over hurdles.
   
• Play hot balloon. Similar to hot potato: blow up a balloon and have your child keep it in the air without holding it or letting it fall to the ground. Time how long your child can go without stopping.
   
• Play toilet-paper dodgeball. Tape a line in the middle to denote sides. Place rubber bands around rolls of toilet paper to keep them from unraveling and throw them at players on the other team in a fun, injury-free game of dodge ball.
   
• Do an ABC scavenger hunt. Have your kids find things around the house for every letter of the alphabet, like A = action figure, B = Barbie, C = car.
   
• Turn any home into a sports arena. Quickly transform your living space with some everyday equipment:
  • Basketball: Get a trash can and an indoor ball and see how many baskets your children can make. Up the ante by having them go further away, or placing the trash can in higher, more challenging spots.
     
  • Gymnastics: Set up a balance beam using a 2-by-4 piece of wood, or a slack line with ratchet straps affixed to cinder block-sized end supports. See how well your child can balance and walk along the low beam. No wood or straps? Tape a line on the floor and have your child walk toe-to-heel in a straight line.
     
  • Bowling: Use empty water bottles as pins and tape as alleys/gutters. Use any kind of ball to knock down the pins.
     
  • Soccer: Set up a goal zone using two items (cones, cups, piles of dirty clothes – whatever works!) and practice taking shots on goal.
     
  • Golf: Lay a plastic cup sideways on the ground and tape it down. Use a putter, pool noodle, hockey stick or whatever you can find on hand to get a golf ball or ping pong ball into the cup.
     
  • Ice Skating: Tape dryer sheets or wax paper to your kids’ feet and let them slide across wood floors.

You don’t need a big space or a lot of supplies to keep your kids active and healthy at home when they’re stuck indoors. Activities that are fun, imaginative and feel like play time are the best exercises for kids!