It looks as though winter is finally hitting New England. Today in Maine we’re bundled up in down coats and wool socks. It seems as though we were just hiking in t-shirts last Saturday…oh right, we were. Despite the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having recently, it looks as though winter is finally settling into the region.
As the snow approaches we should be spending plenty of time outside getting fresh air and frozen fingers. We should toss snow balls, build snow forts, and spin out of control on a flying saucer. We should be sculpt snow folks and carve snow angels. We should ski and skate and snow shoe. We should try Nordic Walking and play hard enough to sweat despite the frigid temperatures. We, as in, all of us, the whole fam-damily.
Yeah, but sometimes it’s cold. Really cold. Too cold. Sometimes it’s too exhausting to even consider bundling the Punks up in all of their layers, again. Despite reduced hours of sunshine, some winter days are long. During days like this I need to reach deep into my pockets to pull out some activities to keep us all sane. How does your crew stay active indoors? What energy burning activities are in your pocket? Here’s a few things from my pocket (in addition to the linty pacifier, lone matchbox car wheel, and single sock):
1. Musical Chairs-
I always thought this was kind of a mean game, but a couple weeks ago when my kids got together with their cousins they had a BALL playing this game. It helped that one of the older girls paired up with one of the tykes to keep him in the game for a long while. They laughed and laughed and the bonus of getting eliminated was that you got to control the music until the next person was nixed.
2. Freeze Dancing- (freeze when the music stops)
3. Dance Party- we have a special dance mix cd that we’ve made that includes all of the kids favorites- from ZZ Top to the Beach Boys to Bob Marley to Mr. James Brown. Nothing like watching a 2 year old groove to “Shake Your Money Maker!”
4. Exercise- Let each child have a turn deciding what the next exercise will be. Lots of preschoolers and school aged kids love to take on this leadership role. In our house the leader uses the exercise mat.
5. Can You Be…?- This is a great game for the witching hour. I pull it out when the kids are asking for food and I am trying to finish up dinner. Just fill in the blank- can you be a snake? Everyone drops to the floor and squirms around. A minute or two later: can you be a hippo?
What ‘cha got in your pocket?
[tags] winter activities, sports, indoor activities, rainy day activities, musical chairs, music activities for kids, movement, gross motor activities[/tags]
Sled Photo by Mike Thomas. Musical Chairs Photo by David Maddison via Flickr.
3 responses so far ↓
Stu Mark // Jan 11, 2007 at 1:27 am
Brilliant. I live in southern Los Angeles, but I used to live in New Jersey, so I get the whole ‘cold outside bad’, ‘warm inside good’ thing.
When I was a kid, my dad would play two different word games with me. One was Rhyme Time and the other was Geography. Should I explain them in comments or save them for my next GNMP submission?
Megin Hatch // Jan 11, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Hi Stu! We do a ton of word and other car-type games, too. One of our favorites is “I’m thinking of a cousin” (my kids have 22 1st cousins). We really should do a collaboration (all readers) of calm activities good for waiting in line, grocery shopping, riding in the car, etc.
Are any of your word games active? Some days we all just have excess energy, you know?
DigitalRich // Jan 11, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Fun ideas! Thanks. We just discovered a long-lost activity last week when it was rainy out. My wife had pulled out an old puzzle (relatively big one- couple thousand pieces) and she started working on it. I stopped by to ask her a question and while I was there figured I would look for a couple easy ones. About an hour later our 5 year old girl and then 8 year old girl were busy helping as well. Not too long after our other two girls wondered what we were up to and joined in.
It turned into an impromptu 3 hour activity that we all enjoyed. Puzzles? I would not have guessed in a million years I would work on a puzzle for 3 hours. Weird. But fun.
DigitalRich
Here via Carnival of Family Flair
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