9 Ways to Make Physical Activity Fun for Your Toddler

A recent study found that 31% of toddlers spend more than 3 hours per day watching TV, and 29% of parents admit to not setting time limits on screen time.

With this in mind there is a growing risk of children missing out on key physical activity time. Most children are naturally active in their early years, but given the choice between outdoor play and indoor screen time, you’d be surprised how many would choose the latter.

Here are some tips from Jackie Cambridge at Kiddi Caru Day Nurseries, that will encourage your little ones to be active and ensure they have fun whilst doing so.

1) Practice Your Animal Movements

By the age of two, toddlers should be able to walk and run, they might also be able to jump with both feet and kick a ball. By the age of three, toddlers can start developing balancing skills.

To encourage them to experiment with their new abilities, you should consider practicing animal movements, this is a great activity that can be done indoors or outdoors. If you have an animal themed soundtrack, you can listen to which animal is making a sound and create the movement accordingly incorporating a dance.

For older children, you could even increase the fun by borrowing some game elements from charades:

Walk like a penguin
Hop like a frog
Walk your hands forward and creep along like a caterpillar

The possibilities of animal movements are endless and teach children a little more about different species while challenging their body to move in new and unfamiliar ways.

2) Dance Parties

It’s no secret that kids love music and are normally found dancing whenever they hear something playing. Whether it’s the occasional free-styling or throwing a dance party, dance is a great form of exercise for young children with many increased benefits:

Flexibility
Range of Movement
Strength and Stamina
Posture
Balance and Co-ordination

You can host a dance party for your kids or invite some of their friends over. All you need to do is put on some music, perhaps get some glow sticks, costumes and props and they can put on a show!

Children often lead by example so parents and guardians should roll up their sleeves a bust a move as well. Impromptu dance parties are also great exercise for adults, as well as little ones.

3) Laughter Yoga

This activity is perfect for stimulating laughter in toddlers. As we know, laughter is contagious and has many different benefits. But with so many different laughter yoga exercises to choose from, here are five that toddlers will enjoy the most!

Balloon Popping Laughter – you try and pop each other’s imaginary balloons attached to your ankles, by running around and jumping.
Bouncing Tigger Laughter (From Winnie The Pooh) – Put both hands together, palms down, ahead of chest and begin laughing.
Electric Shock – Every touch received by the other players, imagine receiving an electric shock and try to get away.
Goalkeeper Laughter – Goalkeeper stops every shot, laughs and throws it back.
Pigeon Laughter – Act like a pigeon, puffing up, moving head and arms whilst running around.

Not only is laughter good for young children mentally, but laughter yoga promotes stretching, bouncing, spinning and just general movement that will help them get their daily dose of exercise, laughing as they go along.

4) Pillow Walk

A great way to keep your toddler away from the TV: use your pillows! By creating a unique pillow path on the floor, ask your child to walk on them. This fun and exciting activity will help increase your toddlers balance and stamina.

You can even turn this into an obstacle course around your front room, perhaps incorporate a tunnel or two. Likewise, you can cover your living room floor with pillows and pretend the pillows are a safe zone from the shark or lava, sparking their imagination through role play.

This activity not only challenges them to get up and walk about, but it also helps develop their gross motor skills, crawling through tunnels and hopping from pillow to pillow.

5) Colour Run

Head to your local store and purchase a set of chalk. On a nice day, take your child out to your garden patio or driveway and draw some big colourful circles. Call out a colour and have your toddler run to that coloured area.

Likewise, you can draw shapes (e.g. triangle, circle, square, rectangle) this activity encourages listening skills and focus, as well as educating and testing toddlers on their knowledge on certain shapes and colours.

6) Find The Timer

Very similar to one of the world’s most popular games, hide and seek, however instead of one of you sat hiding each time, you hide a kitchen timer somewhere in your room/house and get your toddler to find the timer before it “dings”. You can also indicate closeness by saying “hotter/colder” and they get closer or further away from the timer when going in a certain direction.

7) Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts can be carried out anywhere, indoors or outdoors. They help boost a child’s observation and teamwork skills, alongside giving the physical activity they need.

To start you’ll need to take some photos of specific items (flowers, trees, teddies, signs etc) when your children can’t see you. Print these off and give them to your children, set a timer and get them to work together to locate the items you’ve selected on your list.

This activity gives children the opportunity to learn about things found in nature, scavenger hunts are also a great sensory experience that allows little ones to explore new smells, textures and sights.

8) Trampolining

Trampolining is an enjoyable activity that rapidly increases a child’s heart rate, builds strength, tones muscles and teaches balance.

Most kids love to jump, so why not introduce them to a trampoline park or a mini trampoline and engage them in games such as knee jumping, jumping on one leg or counting every jump.

Make sure little ones are always monitored during this activity to avoid injuries occurring. If you have a large trampoline try and put rules in place while children are little, such as allowing only one person on the trampoline at any one time.

9) Tug of War

This is an entertaining way to introduce a competitive nature to your child whilst also enhancing their strength and resistance.

If you have more than one child spilt them into even teams, hand out the rope or sheet and set a goal for the battle to commence!

Make sure the room or garden where this activity is clear from any hard objects or sharp corners. Make sure those taking part understand they cannot let go of the rope while playing as it could cause the opposing team to hurt themselves.

If you don’t have more than one child you can battle against them in the tug of war, but perhaps let them have a few wins!

Physical movement can help kids develop in so many ways. It doesn’t just advance their gross motor skills; it also helps their cognitive abilities too. Early childhood is a time when children are impressionable and full of energy, so it’s important to lay a good foundation for high physical activity levels and a love for exercise to help them stay healthy as they grow.