When the weather begins to turn to the cooler season, it can be difficult to keep your kids active, especially if they are not fans of this chilly weather. One thing I try to do when it gets cold is keeping these ideas at hand to try out. Some of them are new and exciting to my kids while others we’ve done in the past and I can cater to their grade level.
1. Make Each Day A Spirit Day
Remember being a kid and it was spirit week? You were able to dress up for certain ‘themes’ each day. The theme could be a color day, favorite movie, favorite food or more. Take a cue from national calendars and build a lesson plan around each one. While some can be a bit difficult such as National Artichoke Day ( my kids are not a fan ) you could also discuss and talk about fun things such as National Ice Cream Day where your kids can create their own sundaes, talk about new flavors they’d create and draw up their new ideas! Letting your kids learn about something new can inspire their curiosity and build them to become lifelong learners for the future.
2.Pursue Real World Projects
One of the big things that kids want to do is actual real work and making a difference. Begin with a problem or challenge you face. Map out with your children what the project will entail and what they can learn from the project. Plan what the final outcome will be for both of you and them. An example of this could be mapping out a garden for when it becomes spring again. They’ll be using math skills to figure out how big their garden should be, how many seeds they need as well as communication to discuss what their plan is, where seeds should be planted and how they will water them together.
Image: Brazilian Wood Depot
3. Exercise
Another great way to keep your child motivated to do their work is by doing exercise or having a few breaks throughout the day to do this. Since parks are slowly reopening right now, one way to get your kids moving is to go outside and play on the playground. We also set up a few obstacle courses on our backyard deck area which gives them agility experience as well as working on gross and fine motor skills. One thing that also helped us was keeping my kids inside of our backyard with a new fence. Brazilian Wood Depot offers a variety of quality fences to not only keep your backyard looking its best month after month, but it also looks beautiful, is fire and bug resistant! Look into composite wood decking vs wood decking options include the Ipe wood or purpleheart to help make a final decision.
4. Change of Scenery
One thing that might keep your kids active during the cooler months is getting of your normal routine. This could be going to a few towns over and exploring that downtown area, going ice skating, going sledding or even going on a long walk in the woods and doing a scavenger hunt. See if your kids can find colorful leaves, acorns, certain animals and more!
Despite the weather damping plans at times when the colder months start to trickle in, do your best to keep your kids engaged, excited and eager to see what’s coming next. Sometimes the best days are also when you don’t have plans and you can see how your kids will become creative with their own imaginations.
