Keeping It Active: Fun Family Activities

Are you looking for ways to keep the entire family fit and active? Look no further! Here are ten fun family activities your clan can enjoy without breaking the bank.

Nature walks

Walking is a great way to improve or maintain your overall health. Just 30 minutes daily can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance.

Take a stroll through your favorite park or neighborhood and appreciate the beauty of nature together! Identify animals, plants, and interesting sights as you go on your journey.

Walking with family can turn exercise into an enjoyable social occasion. Suggestions include:

Schedule a regular family walk – this is a great way to pass on healthy habits to your children or grandchildren and to spend time together while getting fit at the same time.
If you are walking with children, ensure the route and length of time spent walking are appropriate for their age.
Babies and toddlers enjoy long walks in the pram. Take the opportunity to point out and highlight items of interest to young ones, such as vehicles, flowers, and other pedestrians.
Look for the self-guided nature walks that have been set up in many parks. Younger children enjoy looking for the next numbered post; older ones can learn about the plants and animals of the park and perhaps take photos or record their experience in other ways.

Home Obstacle Course

Create an obstacle course in your backyard with items like hula hoops, skipping ropes, pool noodles, and anything else you can think of! This is a great way to help children develop their gross motor skills in a safe and exciting way.

Any activity in which children use the large muscles in their legs, arms, and torso helps to build their gross motor skills. An obstacle course can include skills such as jumping, running, crawling, walking, pushing, pulling, lifting, and throwing.

You can use inexpensive everyday items to make your obstacle course, including pool noodles, scrap lumber, chalk, wood stumps, bean bags, skipping ropes, water bottles, and hula hoops.

Dance Party

Dancing can be many things: an expression of art, a fun hobby, a representation of culture, and a great form of exercise. Your dance style will influence how intense of a workout it is, but pretty much any dance can be a workout.

What can you get from dancing with family? Here are some of the benefits your family can enjoy:

makes everyone agile and flexible
boosts balance and coordination
improves cardiovascular health
improves muscle tone and strength
maintains and builds bone strength
aids in weight loss or maintenance
boosts memory and cognition
improves mood
reduces stress levels
provides an opportunity to socialize
boosts self-esteem
is easily adaptable to meet your needs

So put on some upbeat music and let loose! With dance moves both young and old will love, this sure-fire way will have everyone laughing in no time.

Card Games

Though regular exercise will help, puzzles, games, and mental activities that require the brain to focus and work hard are best. Playing card games is one way to exercise the mind and help with memory retention. Also, this activity boosts mood and encourages social interaction, both of which are ideal for limiting symptoms and helping people feel as normal as possible.

Moreover, hand-eye coordination gets enhanced while playing cards. The act of examining the cards, holding them in one hand, and using the other to lay one down all help people improve this skill. It also helps with other skills, such as quickening the reflexes when shuffling and dealing and improving fine and gross motor skills.

A classic card game like Uno or Go Fish helps with math skills and encourages strategy and cooperation. Plus, it’s super fun for all ages!

Scavenger Hunt

This helps burn calories not only through walking but sometimes by sprinting or even running. Enables exploration and discovery – While the main goal of a scavenger hunt is finding the treasure, half the fun is embracing the journey as well.

Other benefits of playing scavenger hunt with your kids include the following:

Build problem-solving skills

Scavenger hunts allow kids to practice problem-solving in a tangible way. It helps to reinforce and act-out methods that have been physically taught by parents or teachers, leading to increased retention of the lessons.

Flexible active game

Scavenger hunts are easy to customize to your child’s abilities and interests. Is your child really into pirates? Create a “treasure” hunt with pirate-themed clues. Do you have a math lover in your life? Have them solve number problems to get to the next clue. If you are doing a hunt with multiple kids, you can give each of them individual clues based on their ability. There are endless possibilities!

Body and mind exercise

As discussed, scavenger hunts help exercise the mind by reinforcing problem-solving skills. However, they can also be good exercise for the body. You can incorporate clues that get kids moving and running from place to place. You can even get creative and have your child run to the top of a hill, wander into the woods or climb a tree for the next clue. Get those legs moving!

Practice teamwork

Participating in a group scavenger hunt at home for fun helps teach kids the value of teamwork and promotes social interaction. Kids must work together to solve clues and reach the final destination. Learning to work in a team is an essential skill throughout a child’s life, so why not teach it in a fun way?

Turn any outing into a thrilling search for hidden objects! Write clues for each item on pieces of paper, then hide them around your house or neighborhood – be creative!

Outdoor Sports

There’s nothing quite like running around outside with friends playing soccer, basketball, or tag! Get some exercise while having heaps of fun at the same time.

Here are some fun ideas you can try with your kids!

Play a game of catch. Get a baseball (or any small ball), scrounge up a mitt if you can, and practice tossing the ball back and forth.

Play hopscotch. Grab some chalk and draw a hopscotch course on your front sidewalk. And as a fun surprise, other people walking by will find it hard to resist joining in!

Toss a Frisbee. Have some old-fashioned fun tossing a Frisbee back and forth. Just remember to throw low for the little ones.

Run through the sprinklers. If it’s hot outside, turn those sprinklers on and run through them to cool off. Or, on days when the sun is just scorching, grab the hose and spray it on your kids.

Complete a ropes course. Challenge yourselves and encourage each other to push individual boundaries and step out of your comfort zone.

Have a three-legged race. In groups of two, tie one person’s leg to the other’s and try to make your way to the finish line first—without eating dirt on the way.

Play a game of kickball. Rules are the same as baseball, except pitching is underhand, and there’s kicking instead of batting. Use a medium-sized bouncy ball.

Art Projects

After playing games with the family, why not settle down and relax by doing creative projects using things you see outdoors? Gather up dried leaves, sticks, stones, twigs, and other natural materials from nearby parkland or woods to create amazing works of art together – painting rocks is another great alternative too!

Cooking Together

Cooking improves the bond between parents and children and relationships between couples. Getting the kids involved in cooking together allows everyone to show their love, care, and support to each family member through preparing and eating together a nourishing meal. It’s also an effective way to get to know your family more.

Kids can learn a range of skills in the kitchen, even when exploring independently. But many “soft skills” kids can learn only come out when cooking with others. Kids — from preschoolers all the way up to teens — can learn social skills, communication skills, collaboration, and more when you cook together as a family.

Teach younger generations about food safety and nutrition by getting hands-on in the kitchen together – baking cookies might be messy, but it’s worth it for the delicious results afterward!

Yoga

If the purpose of yoga is to become awake in the present moment, then children are inherently yogis in training. With the correct encouragement and focus, they are easily fully engaged, regardless of age. We can harness their intrinsic desire to move and curious imaginations to use yoga postures as an opportunity for a fun game of “make-believe” and to move in ways that benefit the body and mind. Yoga can help alleviate growing pains, build self-trust, self-awareness, ability to focus, balance skills, boost confidence, and release anxiety so that we can support the next generation to be holistically balanced adults.

Try out beginner yoga poses together for an activity that promotes physical activity and mindfulness – parents can learn alongside children, too, so everybody benefits from it equally!

Have a Picnic

Going on a picnic allows you to focus on your kids without distractions. Picnics are the perfect opportunity to make your kids feel loved and heard. Plus, you never know what you might learn from your kids. A little family competition playing picnic games will also help your family bond.

For kids, the fresh air does wonders for their mental health. Spending time outside is shown to reduce anxiety levels and lower activity levels in the parts of our brains related to mental illness. Time in the sunshine is also related to improved mood and reduced stress levels for the whole family.

Time outside benefits our physical health. Breathing in fresh air is beneficial for children with respiratory problems like asthma. A picnic on a sunny day also aids in vitamin D and calcium absorption, which helps to build strong bones and teeth and helps prevent diseases like osteoporosis and rickets. Just don’t forget the sunblock when spending time in the sun!

Pack up some delicious snacks (try making them together!) Then head over to your local park or beach where you can have lunch outside while enjoying some sunshine – don’t forget a Frisbee, either, if there’s enough space.

With these ten activities, your family can enjoy quality time together while staying healthy at the same time – what more could anyone ask for? Let us know below what kinds of activities you love doing with your families – we would love to hear from you.