We all want to teach our children how to lead healthy and active lifestyles. But, wanting our children to lead healthy and active lifestyles and actually teaching them how to incorporate health and fitness into their daily lives are two very different things.
What Is The Best Way To Teach Children Healthy Habits?
The best way to teach children healthy habits is through play. They will not learn how to exercise properly, safely and effectively by reading about it in a book; And they certainly will not learn to appreciate the joy, freedom and beauty of being outdoors by watching nature shows on TV or listening to a teacher lecture them about the importance of being active.
They will, however, grow up to be adults who crave physical activity and make the effort to lead healthy lifestyles if these values have been integrated into their lives, from an early age, in a fun and relevant manner.
How Can Parents Find Ways to Integrate Healthy Habits Into Their Children's Daily Routines?
The only way that well-meaning parents can incorporate healthy habits into their children's daily routines is by first incorporating the same healthy habits into their own daily routines.
To do this, parents must be consistent, persistent, creative, and willing to lead through example.
FitDeck Junior: Exercise Playing Cards, which retail at just $14.95, are a must-have tool for those of you looking for creative ways of incorporating fun, safe, and age-appropriate exercise routines into your child's daily routine.
What Is FitDeck?
FitDeck is a unique set of 56 playing cards designed to make exercise fun for people of all ages and fitness levels. Each card contains illustrations and instructions for a movement, stretch or exercise that can be mixed and matched to keep the routines fresh and exciting.
FitDeck Junior: Exercise Playing Cards contain over 50 upper, middle, lower, and full body exercises especially designed to be fun, safe and effective for children between the ages of 5 and 12. Most importantly, FitDeck Junior empowers children to mix, match and customize their own fitness routines simply by shuffling a deck of cards.
Best of all, these exercises require no equipment but rely on the child's own bodyweight, thus customizing the workout for the child.
- The following are just a few examples of how FitDeck Junior Exercise Playing Cards turn exercise into a game the whole family can enjoy:
Note: It is virtually impossible to run out of fun, fitness game ideas when using this product. However, if you ever find yourselves unable to come up with a new game idea simply hand the deck of cards to the kids and let their imaginations take over. If you feel that your children are too young to handle this responsibility safely, than you should invest in the FitDeck games and activity booklet which contains well over 70 games and activity ideas ($3.95).
Obstacle Course:
This is most suited for schools or day care centers that have built-in obstacle courses. But, with a little bit of creativity, parents can find a way to play this fun game in their own backyards as well. Set up obstacle course stations that require children to run around, over, through, or inside. At each obstacle, ask the children to draw a FitDeck Jr. card and perform the exercise they have drawn.You can even split the family into two groups: kids vs. parents and see which group has the fastest time.
Scavenger Hunt:
This is a great activity for rainy days when the kids can't play outside. Hide the cards around the house, playground, classroom, or daycare. Split the kids into two groups and designate a starting point. Each team of kids is to find as many cards as they can and return them to the designated starting point. Then the team as a whole is to perform all the exercises listed on its cards. The team that finds the most cards and performs the most exercises accurately wins.
Color Stations:
This activity is perfect for those long winter months when the kids can not play in the school yard but are stuck inside the school gym. Set up four exercise stations that represent the four FitDeck Jr. colors (blue, red, orange, green); children rotate from station to station and perform that station’s cards.
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August 30, 2010 at 5:04 PM
fitdeck is the way of helping children a healthy habit. This is really a good exercise for kids but also the whole family. This activity will help us to develop a healthy body and help parents on getting along with kids.