5 Activities to Get Your Family Active Outside
The weather is finally starting to warm up, and the kids are itching to get outside! To keep things interesting, try planning some outdoor activities for the whole family! Not only will everyone get fresh air and exercise, but the whole family spends quality time together as well. I’m happy to share five fun ways to get your family active outside.
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Take a Hike
It doesn’t matter if you live in the mountains or near the coast, you can pack up and head out for a family walk. Want to keep the kids from getting bored? Add in a scavenger hunt! See how many different birds, bugs, and plants you can find while you are out.
Off to the Races
Remember in kindergarten when you loved to race outside with your friends? You can plan a race with your family! You don’t have to go far – in your driveway or yard will do. Another fun option is to find the nearest track that’s open to the public and have a race. You can run short distances or long, or get silly by having backward tip-toe races and crab walks!
Fitness Challenge
One of my kids’ favorite things to do is telling ME what to do. So when I want to get them more active, I let them call the shots!
Here’s how it works:
- First, choose a location. It can be in your backyard, throughout the neighborhood, or on the school track/football field.
- Then, tell them to call out an exercise and a number from 1-10, such as do 10 squats.
- Once everyone does that exercise, another kid chooses the next exercise.
- If you have room, do a quick jog from one spot to the next (from one side of the yard to another, for example) before doing the next move.
- Your family can decide if parents get a turn to choose an exercise or not.
Trail Cleanup
I don’t know why my children have such a hard time keeping their rooms clean, yet they love to clean up trash outside!
Choose a safe place to go for a walk – through the neighborhood, in a park, or along a nature trail. Take some bags and pick up as much trash as you can while you go.
You can make it a little more educational by talking about additional ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle while you walk.
Chalk it Up
Even though I am almost 40 years old, I still have fun playing with sidewalk chalk. We keep a stash on hand and head outside to draw when the weather is nice.
You can always get out and draw pictures, but if you want to kick up the activity level a notch, have the kids draw some sort of obstacle course! Draw flowers to hop on, draw a river to jump across back and forth, lunge from circle to circle… let your imagination run wild!
Include the Whole Family!
The best way to ensure an active family is by involving everyone, starting at a young age! Even newborn babies can tag along with the family fun when mom or dad wear them in a baby carrier.
The Ergobaby Omni 360 Cool Air Mesh baby carrier supports all carry positions: front facing you, front facing out, hip and back carries. Newborns as small as 7 pounds all the way up to toddlers as heavy as 45 pounds can be safely worn while on a family adventure!
The 3D air mesh panels keep parents and babies cool in the summer, and the switch sliders that make it easy to move baby from facing in or out make the Ergobaby Omni 360 the perfect choice for parents on the go.
Check out the Ergobaby Omni 360 HERE (we have the khaki green color shown).
Getting the whole family outside for some fun in the sun is so much fun – and important for everyone too! You can learn more about the benefits of outdoor games for kids here.
MEET AMANDA
Amanda is a mom of 4 living a mostly crunchy lifestyle outside of Atlanta, GA with her husband, 2 dogs, and a cat. As a former special education teacher who also has her personal training certification — Amanda really enjoys teaching others how to do things!
When she’s not working, Amanda enjoys DIY projects, exercising, photography, hiking, and long walks through Target.
These activities are all so fun. Im going to try to do them with the kids next time.
These activities all look like fun and my kids would love them.