Adults and kids of all ages need to stay active in order to remain healthy throughout life. When you're trying to encourage activity in your preschooler, you want to keep things active and fun. As the website KidsHealth points out, if a preschooler complains of being tired during an activity, chances are she's probably just bored. Mix up cardiovascular activities and play fun games to keep her excited about exercise.
Bicycle Safety Skills
If your preschooler has a bicycle, tricycle or big wheels, head to the park with the whole family. Find an area with wide paths, or a nice big field and play bicycle safety games with your kids. You can team up and create a bike rodeo, walking your child through key bicycle safety skills like stopping at stop signs, watching for barriers on the road and using hand signals for turns. For instance, you could have your child pedal to the first tree, stop and get off the bike, walk the bike to the next tree, get back on the bike, practice cycling in a circle and changing direction, etc. The sooner you can teach your children bicycle safety, the more prepared they'll be to hit the road as they get older. Disguise the safety drills as part of an obstacle course. Use your creativity and change up the game often to keep your preschooler engaged.
Freeze Dance
Let your preschooler pick out his favorite songs on your MP3 player, then set them up to play in succession and have him dance around to the music. To make it especially fun, you should dance around with him. Then, periodically stop the music mid-song. When you stop the music, you and your child have to freeze in place, staying still in whatever silly position you were in when the music stopped. Your preschooler will have quite the giggles after playing this active cardio game for a little while.
Walking Scavenger Hunt
Plan a scavenger hunt with your little one. Think of 10 or 12 things the two of you can find in your neighborhood. You might include items like: an acorn, a piece of litter, something blue, and so forth. If you have a digital camera, you can expand your list to places or people, as long as you can take a picture of that item together. Then take a walk together, walking until you find everything on your list. Your child will stay involved by keeping on the lookout for all of the scavenger hunt items, and will get an effective cardio workout by walking.
