Spring break starts today for my kids. One and a half weeks of time off from school. We were thinking about going away for a weekend but decided to skip it and save the money. Should be an interesting time as I work full-time from home along with running this blog. The boys will probably spend plenty of time in front of the tv but I wanted to share some ideas for getting kids (and their parents!) up and off the couch as well. The following is a guest post from Shana Schneider, fitness expert and founder of FITWEEK, a fitness company dedicated to helping women “turn their week into a fit week.”
Play old school games. Remember things like red light/green light, Simon says, duck-duck-goose, musical chairs, or freeze tag? These are lots of fun, and free! Or, for older kids, go to an arcade. See who has the skills for Pac Man or Skee Ball.
Head to the park. Find a list of all the parks in your city and make a plan to visit as many as you can during the break. As part of the fun, pack a picnic. This way, your kids can still run around outside and you’ll all be ready for a nap afterwards. Check out the playgrounds or the trails, and then when home, place stickers on a map of your city identifying each parks and playgrounds you have visited.
Watch a movie marathon. The key here is to make fitness part of the viewing. Here’s how it could work – assign a character to each family member; that person has to get up and sit down, or do some exercise each time the assigned character comes on the screen. It’s pretty funny to see people randomly get up and down throughout the movie. There’ll be some giggles involved, which can get your abs working, too!
Visit a museum. They usually run walking tours and will often have activities for kids. If you’re in the Connecticut area, check out the children’s museums, which are interactive fun for the whole family. And no one has to worry about not touching the exhibits.
Cook in the kitchen, and use that elbow grease. Do something out of the ordinary like making bread or pizza dough from scratch. When getting those ingredients together, remember no electric mixers allowed.
Learn a new sport or activity. Try yoga for the first time together, or take a dance class. If someone in the family is an expert at a particular sport have them teach the others how to play it.
Host an active video game tournament. If you have a video game console, set up your own family tournament and compete in a different sport each day. Need more people involved? Invite the neighbors or other friends over to join you. Choose from – golfing, tennis, boxing, snowboarding, dancing and the list goes on. You can even divide up the groups so you have adults play one game and kids another. The point is you want to pick games that get everyone moving!
We take about one staycation every year! We have a lot of local museums that we visit!