Promoting activity and physical fitness helps your child maintain a healthy weight and promotes lifelong fitness and health, according to Dr. Edward Laskowski of the Mayo Clinic. Children love to play, so promote your child's health and fitness by encouraging fun games. Active games like snake in the gutter, rotten egg and setting up an obstacle course will be so fun your child will not even realize he is exercising.
Snakes in the Gutter
Divide children into two teams with one team acting as the snakes. The snakes form a gutter by standing in a spaced-out line and facing the other team. Yell "Snake in the gutter!" to signal the beginning of the game. The children who are not snakes attempt to run through the gutter without being tagged by a snake. Any child tagged becomes a snake herself and must stay in the gutter to try to tag other children. Any child who makes it through the gutter without being tagged tries to cross the gutter again until all children have become snakes. Vary the game by suggesting different actions other than running. For example, the children who are not snakes may have to skip through the gutter. The snakes may also choose to lie on their bellies while trying to tag to make it more difficult.
Rotten Egg
A group of children may play this game by designating one person the rotten egg. All the other children chase and try to tag the rotten egg. Whoever tags the rotten egg first becomes the new rotten egg and all the children then try to tag the new rotten egg. Any child who does not wish to play can simply quit running or let himself be tagged.
Obstacle Course
An obstacle course can be set up using a variety of household goods and in various settings including a room or the backyard. The Small Step website recommends setting up a course with four different stations spaced out throughout the obstacle course area.
Ideas for stations include a slalom area where five cones or water bottles make a line with two feet between each object. At this station, players run around each object in a zigzag pattern without touching the object. The second station could be a jumping station where children jump as high as possible 20 times while howling or making another animal noise. Station three could be a limbo station where two chairs or garbage cans hold up a bar such as a broomstick or tightened jump rope. Children duck or crawl beneath the bar without touching to pass on to the next station. The last station could be a toss station where a target is set up using cans or chalk on the ground. Five objects, such as beanbags or pennies, are tossed onto the targets from a designated starting mark. As soon as all the objects are tossed, the player has completed the obstacle course.
You may choose to either time the players individually or make the course a group race. When timing players individually, whoever completes the course in the least amount of time wins. In the group race, all children start at the same time and whichever child completes the course first wins.
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