First day of Spring has Sprung!

Winter offers its beauties, but by the time Spring comes around, many of us are ready to burst outdoors and into glorious sunshine and green grass to stretch our formerly housebound legs.

Beyond the normal playground, tag, and bike activities, sometimes we need something new in our family fitness routines. Many of the ideas highlighted by MOLLY MAID, the professional housecleaning experts, are geared towards primary school ages, but can be modified to include younger and older ages. Most of these ideas use household objects or just yourselves and space.

Family Fitness Ideas for the Great Outdoors:

• Try geocaching – Geocaching uses a GPS device and ‘free treasures’ planted by other participants. Visit the main geocaching website to search for local coordinates and how-to’s atukgeocachers.co.uk (or geocaching.com). Your family can incorporate maths skills (learning how to follow coordinates) and get moving, too.

• Train for a 5k together – Walking or running a5k (3.1 miles) is a very doable and fun challenge for a family to complete together. Youngest children can participate in a buggy, and children around age 7 and up can run/walk. Remember to make yourself a family fitness goal setting sheet.

• Plan a park or historical house hop  -You might visit just one or two parks the majority of the time. If you live in an area with several parks or historical houses or gardens, pick one day a week to visit a new park. Complete a family tour over the course of the season.

• Outdoor scavenger/ treasure hunt – Jot down a list of items for your children to find on a nature walk or objects you’ve hidden in the garden. For young children, give a visual example of spring-related items to look for such as daffodils.

• Outdoor puzzle race – Take several household objects, trace their outlines on poster or cardboard, and then scatter those objects throughout your garden. Either let your children run to find the pieces as quickly as possible, or switchup the movements every 30-60 seconds to skip, hop, crab walk, leap, and more. Match the objects to their outlines.

• Plant an experimental play garden – If you have some room in your garden, allow the children to have a small plot to garden on their own. Digging, hoeing, and planting all work multiple muscle groups, and your children experiment growing.

• Hill race – Find a big hill nearby. Climb up it, and race down forwards, sideways, or crawling! Repeat with giggles.

• Dancing in the rain – On a warm day with a refreshing rain, outfit your kids in their rain gear and go outside and dance in the rain. You’ll surprise your children and get exercise, too!

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