By April Van Scherpe
Today’s post is the second in a series of “At Home With Gratitude” topics. We at Little Wonders hope this series will be helpful to you, our community, by providing support and resources during these unique times. As Mireille’s recent blog post mentioned, we hope to find the silver lining and embrace this as an opportunity to slow down and spend quality time with the ones we love most. By doing this with gratitude, we will set an example for our children and hopefully make this a time that our little ones will remember fondly.
It's time to get creative with fitness! With Stay-at-Home orders throughout the U.S., public play spaces are off the table. How can you and your young family stay physically active within your own home, or around your neighborhood? Luckily, fellow parents are sharing their best exercise hacks; we've collected some favorites for you--and most of them are free. Have a great workout!
Indoor Activities and Games:
Dance Party: Cue up your favorite music and dance! Start and stop the song to turn it into Freeze Dance.
Obstacle Course: Create a course for your kids using pillows, toys, furniture, or anything else around your house. Show them how to go through it. ("Step over the stuffed penguin and run around the table.") For the next round, have *them* create a course for *you.*
Outdoor Activities and Games:
Walk (or run, bike, scooter, or stroller) around your neighborhood: Staying home or in your immediate neighborhood is strongly encouraged right now (and mandated in some areas). The good news is, it's a great time to explore right outside your front door. Choose a method of locomotion and go!
Theme walks: To keep it interesting, choose a theme or game for your walk. See if your child can spot flowers (or cars, or front doors) in every color of the rainbow! How about a scavenger hunt to find objects for every alphabet letter? Counting can make the walk fun, too. (How many cats will we see? How many flags? How many stop signs?) On rainy days, have fun with a puddle stomping walk.
Exercise with chalk: Use chalk to make hopscotch on your driveway or sidewalk, then get jumping! For a twist, draw lily pads on a pond--or surfboards above shark-infested waters!--and have your kids hop to the shore. Add other elements to create a whole obstacle course, e.g. follow the wiggly line, dance across the criss-cross marks, etc.
Online Workouts for Kids:
Cosmic Kids Yoga: Yoga sessions that feel like a playtime adventure, as instructor Jamie leads kids through vivid, make-believe scenarios with yoga poses to match. Some sessions even have familiar movie themes--like Frozen--and colorful backgrounds to match.
Sami's Circuit: Daily live-streamed (1 PM PST) workouts by motivational speaker Sami, who used to lead exercise programs in schools before the lockdown. The electronic music and Sami's commanding voice make this a high energy program.
Fitness Blender: A 25-minute workout demonstrated by a mom and her young kids; the moves are well-explained and easy to repeat yourself, even for an encore in your backyard.
P.E. with Joe: Virtual physical education on YouTube led by a friendly and disarming British fitness instructor.
Online Workouts for Grown-Ups:
Peloton App: Normally $13/month, this app is free for 90 days as a quarantine-time special. Available classes include cardio, yoga, strength training, and more--no bike required.
Butterfly Yoga: Live stream yoga classes from an instructor in the Little Wonders family! In addition to live classes, Pattie’s live stream recordings are available for free on YouTube. Try her Yoga for Acceptance & Gratitude Warm Up & Flow.
Yoga Source Palo Alto: Live stream yoga classes made affordable with donate-what-you-can pricing.
Many recreation centers have put together quarantine-friendly fitness offerings as well, a.k.a. Virtual Recreation, including our local City of San Mateo, City of Burlingame, and City of Belmont.
We are continually updating this list of resources for families with infants and toddlers. Hopefully it is helpful for your family. Please add your favorites!