Bringing Physical Activities Indoor for Winter

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Sun Hats and Wellie Boots set up an indoor bear hunt to act out the popular story and get little bodies moving.

Hands On: As We Grow has some clever ABC mat activities to keep little ones moving.

From the Hive suggests that you save some wax paper for indoor ice skating.

Make your own indoor slide with some inspiration from this photo on Tinker Lab.

Put together an indoor bowling game using the suggestion on Life of a Modern Mom.

A few other simple ideas:
~Hide & Seek
~Dance!
~Haul in a hula hoop, jump rope, or mini trampoline

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We Like to Move It! Move It!

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Thanks for stopping by to check out Wednesday's Workout, a collection of physical activities to get your kids up and moving and learning as they go!

Quirky Momma has put together a post featuring tips for parents to get their preschoolers exercising. Her exercise dice makes stomping, crawling, hopping, twirling, and clapping even more entertaining.

Turn your ordinary painting time into an Action Painting Adventure thanks to this fun suggestion from Teaching Two.

Live, Learn, Love submitted a suggestion for Jump Counting with you Preschooler.

Inspiration Surrounds....Creativity Abounds recently made up a game that could be played with her three year old and fifteen month old. It wasn’t designed as a physical activity as such, but having played it, it actually constitutes a creative game that involves quite a bit of physical activity.

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Monkeying Around Monday: Fall Edition

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This edition of Monkeying Around is all about getting out and enjoying the fall season and a few other great ideas for keeping active are shared as well. We'd love to know how you stay active during the colder months so please let us know and even better post about it so we can feature you in the winter edition of Monkeying Around!


Get inspired by this great idea and play tic-tac-toe with nature! Get outdoors, go on a nature walk, and along the way keep your eyes out for any small treasures on the ground and collect them for the fun game she suggests. Thanks to Heather, from Dollar Store Crafts for contributing this at Make and Takes.

Do you have an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, or farm nearby with a large hay stack or hay pyramid? It's quite challenging, especially for little ones to climb to the top of these, and gives them a nice upper body workout! Kids of all ages will enjoy going up and down and chasing on these. Call ahead to see if there is a charge to play on it and always keep a close eye on the kids while playing!

And while we're on the topic of apple orchards and pumpkin patches, don't forget that an afternoon picking apples is not only fun but a lot of work for your little ones! Walking up and down the aisles of trees or pumpkin vines is a great way to get some sunshine and exercise. They're also fun culminating activities for harvest units.

Maureen at Spell Outloud shares three pages of great little Active Activity Cards that you can work into your kid's schedule cards. They are a great way to break up the day so you get some movement and exercise into the day. These are originally from Homeschool Shareby Candace Crabtree.

We also like Counting the House activity shared on Let's Explore. Perfect for when the days start getting chillier or if your outside plans are rained out, this one will get your kids moving all around the house on an indoor scavenger hunt.

Make your own tap shoes, as seen on Jedda's This Little Project, click on over to learn how to make them and then wear them to:

Practice counting with each jump. (by 5's, 10's, etc.)
Practice spelling words out loud with each step. You could even draw letters with sidewalk chalk and walk on them as you go.
Enjoy the SOUNDS you can make.
Make fast sounds...and s l o w sounds.
Make LOUD sounds and quiet sounds.
Pactice standing or hoping on one foot.
Work on which foot is Right and which is Left.
"hear" if you are tapping your toes to the beat-a great way to practice this life-altering skill!
Turn on the MUSIC and DANCE to it!

Health.com shares great ways to make your own obstacle course at home. These are great, quick, ways to get your heart thumping and many do not require a lot of equipment.

Mr. Gym has several simple ideas to get your kids up and moving, we like:
Cooperative Games, designed to require students to work and cooperate with one another, in order to solve a problem or succeed as a team.
Small Space Games, activities that do not require a lot of room.

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Get Up and Move!

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Adventures with Kids sent in a link to a post with some great ways to teach and practice balancing.

Learning Objective - practise balances to continue developing their awareness of their body position in space and their ability to move around in different ways.

While over at Adventures with Kids, we also saw a great post on playing ball with your kids, things to do with bean bags, and also some fun things to do with balloons ranging from active things like playing volleyball with a balloon to art uses.

Mariel from Or So She Says shares ways to get fit with the whole family, with a guest post by Nichole. Mariel has also posted a collection of 10 ways to make healthy eating fun for kids. We especially like the food face plate she found.

Basia from United Teaching shares how to prepare an outdoor environment which encourages playing and learning.

Getting outdoors and heading to a local playground is a great way to spend a few hours during this time of year. It's also a good place to play Follow the Leader because there are so many different types of equipment found at many play structures. Have your child follow and mimic your actions. You can walk on a balance beam, crawl through tunnels, climb up ladders, run or walk up the stairs, cross the monkey bars, and go down slides. You'll find that this is also a good way to burn off calories for yourself too!

Don't forget to have some sprinkler fun this summer! They're tons of fun and can be very refreshing on a hot summer day. Your kids will be cooled off and you'll get to water the lawn at the same time. Water balloons are another fun summer time way to play with water and water balloon fights can be a very active sport indeed, in our experience a child will run a long time in order to try and get mom or dad all wet!

Making physical activity a part of daily life is so important and sets good habits for a life time. We'd love to know your family's favorite way to get everyone up and moving. At Katie's Nesting Spot, we like to take family walks with ER riding her tricycle after dinner when it begins to cool off. We all get some exercise and it's a nice opportunity for us to talk about our day and reconnect too.

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Picnic Activities: National Physical Education Month

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What does every good picnic need? Some great activities of course! In honor of National Physical Education Month, here are ideas to get everyone moving!

Need some ideas on how to manage PE activities? Amy at Teach Mama suggests some educational ways that help her kids take turns on the swing that can be used in many different situations.


Take your kids outdoors for an outside scavanger hunt, Amber at Hey, I'm Just the Nanny shares her version.

But if the weather won't cooperate, try Teaching Heart Mom's Home Hunt. She even provides picture cards for you to use with her game.

Instructables suggests a little monkey-ing around while teaching your child to spell his or her name.


Take a look at No Time for Flashcards for simple suggestions on setting up a mini-olympics.


Flipflops and Applesauce has a fun idea for sticker tag, what kid doesn't love stickers?

Games Kids Play has a great list of favorite jump rope rhymes. Bring back any memories?


The kids at Annie's Alphabet Home love parachut play, seeing the big smiles on their faces reminds us why parachuts remain a main stay in early childhood classrooms and daycares. Looking for more ways to use your parachute, try here.

Kids Games has many games listed, including many traditonal favorites you may have forgotten about such as capture the flag, red light green light, and 500 as well as many others divided into categories such as chasing games and sensing games. With so many choices you're bound to find some way to keep everyone busy and having fun! It won't even feel like exercise☺

Another great online resource is PE Central, there you'll find classroom management techniques, activities divided up by grades, and lots more.

Don't forget to enter our weekly giveaway, our kick off sponsor is Frecklebox and you won't want to miss you chance to win a personalized gift for your child!

Come on back tomorrow, for our first Picnic Table Talk! Be ready to link up your introduction post on your blog, to see suggestions for what to include in it see our announcement post. We can't wait to come around and meet all you and get to know our community of teachers and learners better!

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Monkey Around Monday

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The following article is reprinted with permission from ebeanstalk.com. This expert advice gives the WHY? behind Monkeying Around!

Learning Through Movement
by Barbara Greenspan, OT

In the last newsletter Shari Harpaz, eBeanstalk’s resident Speech Pathologist, introduced the concept of how children learn by using their senses.

Everyone is familiar with the 5 senses including:
Touch (Tactile)
Sight (Visual)
Smell (Olfactory)
Taste (Oral)
Hearing (Auditory).

But there are actually two more senses (or systems) that we don’t hear much about and they are crucial for movement and learning; they are the vestibular and proprioceptive systems (sound complicated? It’s not). These two movement systems give us information about our bodies and how we move relative to the world around us.

Where’s my head? The vestibular system sits in the inner ear and tells us where our head is in relation to the ground.

Where’s my body? The proprioceptive receptors are located in our muscles, joints and ligaments and this system tells us where our body is in space.

For example, if your arms are up straight in the air and your eyes are closed, the proprioceptive system tells us where our body parts are located without using our eyes. This system also tells us how much strength is needed to do a task such as how hard to throw a ball or how much pressure to apply to a pencil to write on paper. Think about that the next time you walk in the dark feeling for the light-switch.

So, as parents, how do we give input to these important systems that help our children learn about their bodies in relation to the world around them? Keep reading and we will give you some great ideas that you can do at home and at the playground to stimulate these “movement” systems!

1. It’s time to move
In our first eBeanTALK newsletter, our Physical Therapist, Deanie Barth, wrote about the importance of having infants spend time on their tummies. However it is also critical for them to spend time putting their bodies and especially their heads in different positions (other than just straight upright). One good way to accomplish this is to lay on your back and lift your baby up in the air in front of your body and tilt them from side-to-side. Play games and sing songs while you bring their face close to yours and then back up in the air again. This is a great bonding activity (and your arms will get a workout as well!) and an excellent way to teach your baby about movement.

2. Get creative
When your baby starts to crawl, use tunnels and forts to encourage movement on all fours and again put their head in different positions as they use these objects.

3. Keep it simple
Another great tool for children this age are exercise balls. Place your child on his or her stomach on a large exercise ball then carefully tip them forward until they touch the floor in front of them with their hands, then roll the ball back until they touch the ground with their feet. Sing songs while you do this and they will giggle as they go down and back up while learning how the rolling ball makes their body move.

4. Gravity is fun
After they have learned how to walk, help your toddler feel how gravity effects their movement by helping them try to walk up a slide and then hold them as they slide back down headfirst. Another fun playground activity it to carefully push them on a swing while they are seated and then on their stomachs. Or, take them on a wheelbarrow walk -- let your child walk on his or her hands while you hold them up by their feet. Not only are all of these playtime activities helpful in developing a child’s vestibular system they will also help to build strong muscles at the same time!

5. The bottom line
By being creative you can play an almost limitless number games that place your child’s body and head in a variety of positions that stimulate their vestibular and proprioceptive systems. All these ideas are building blocks that prepare a child to direct their bodies in the way they want them to move, and prepare them for carrying out their important jobs as preschoolers and future students.

So remember, provide your children with many sensory rich experiences throughout their day because learning doesn’t only happen in your brain!

Learning is a two-way street

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Monkey Around Monday

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This week's Monkey Around Monday will have you Running Like Rabbits & Behaving Like Bunnies...or something like that!

Katie created a game that incorporates physical activity & counting. Plus...it's "Easter-y!"


~Preschoolers love to make-believe. Pretend to be Peter Rabbit. Fashion a fuzzy white tail. Attach it & send your little ones outside for some hoppy exercise.

~Using sidewalk chalk, draw a bunny trail on your driveaway. Encourage the kids to hop like a bunny through the trail.

~Set up an egg race or obstacle course. Encourage your children to hold the egg on a spoon & balance it as they race to the finish line. For multiple participants make it a relay race.

~Play "Bunny, Bunny, Rabbit" instead of Duck, Duck, Goose.

Associated Content explains the Easter Freeze Game.

Apples 4 the Teacher has compiled a list of Easter related games & activities to get your children up and moving: Easter Egg Race, Egg Race, Suspended Eggs, Rolling Eggs, & Bunny Eggs.

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