Friday, January 9, 2015

Indoor Active Play Grab Bag Ideas

Thanks to this crazy cold weather, Kaja hadn't left the house in almost 5 days and was going stir crazy! She was literally running in circles this morning, and I knew we had to do something! Now, there's a million ideas on Pinterest for indoor active play, and I've tried a couple, but I haven't had much luck finding ones that really capture her interest and keep her moving for more than a few minutes, and I was hoping to tire her out! She's very story and craft oriented these days, so anything that captures her creative/imaginative side helps! That, and just changing things up a lot!
So, I decided to do a "wiggle grab bag." with LOTS of active ideas. You pull an idea out of the bag, and everyone has to do what the paper says before you can pull out another idea. Each activity can be done in a matter of seconds, or, if it strikes your fancy, you can play at it for as long as you want. This is simple and open-ended so it can move with her.

I wrote down the ideas, drew lines to make a grid around them, and had her cut them out, so she got some fine motor practice in, too! ;)
Here is what we have so far:
  • Toss a ball into a laundry basket (this was a favorite, she did this for a good 20 minutes)
  • Lay down and do the bicycle motion in the air (slow, fast, to a song, while counting, see who can do it longer, etc. I got tired way before she did! Great ab workout!)
  • See how long you can stand on one foot (then try the other)!
  • Bounce around on a yoga ball or large stuffed animal
  • army crawl across the room
  • do baby push-ups (we have an infant, so we all do "tummy time" together!)
  • Do 10 jumping-jacks
  • crawl under all the kitchen/dining-room chairs
  • balance while walking on a line (use masking tape or just the grout lines on tile floors)
  • Hop in a circle
  • Roll across the room!
  • Climb up and down the stairs pretending it's a mountain
  • Spin around 5 times
  • Climb up the back/side of the couch
  • push laundry basket around on the carpet (get 2 and make it a race!)
  • Dance to a silly song (Hokey Pokey? Chicken Dance? Something with motions!)
  • Walk backwards to another room and back
  • Flap your wings and fly around the house
  • Be a human wheelbarrow (one person holds ankles while the other walks on hands)
  • "Crab walk" around the room
  • Jump like a frog (could play leap frog!)
  • Crawl to the other side of the room and back
  • Line up stuffed animals (or pillows) and jump over them
  • Play "Ring Around the Rosey"
I anticipate adding more as we go. We moved and jumped and played for about 30 minutes before we had to take a break, and we only used 4 or 5 ideas. We'll do it again tomorrow...

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