:: Add ribbons and you have a swirling homemade dance studio

:: Remember there’s no such thing as . . . → Read More: Moving and shaking: winter ideas for fit kids]]>
Don’t let grey days and freezing temperatures stop your kids moving and shaking. Use these ideas from our Play Academy link ups for action games to have fun and keep your kids fit and active all winter long.

Winter active play ideas

:: Add ribbons and you have a swirling homemade dance studio

:: Remember there’s no such thing as bad weather so long as you’re wearing the right clothes. Get wrapped up and enjoy a spot of puddle jumping.

:: Combine movement and nursery rhymes and sing your way to fitness.

:: Adding tunnels, bubble wrap and balloons makes for a fabulous obstacle course whether it’s outside or indoors.

:: Make an activity cube, roll a dice and get moving.

For more indoor activity play ideas come and follow my Action Games Pinterest board.

happily shared with link and learn and the sunday showcase it’s playtime and thrifty thursday

This week’s Play Academy link-up is all about Active Play. Please share an idea for any kind of  active play – a new post or one from your archive.

Running, jumping, dancing, hiking, yoga, climbing, inside or outside – what  active play do your kids enjoy? Help us build a fantastic store of  . . . → Read More: Join the Carnival of Get Active! Play]]>

Welcome to the Carnival of Get Active! Play

This week’s Play Academy link-up is all about Active Play. Please share an idea for any kind of  active play – a new post or one from your archive.

Running, jumping, dancing, hiking, yoga, climbing, inside or outside – what  active play do your kids enjoy? Help us build a fantastic store of  active play ideas we can use whenever we need a new idea.

1. Please link to your actual post, not your homepage.

2. Please add a text link from your page through to this carnival, to invite others to come and share the ideas.

3. Go and visit some of the other blogs listed and say hi.

4. Grab an idea and go play!

5. Don’t forget to come back next Friday to join in with our regular ‘anything goes’ link-up.

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I loved Jeanne’s comment saying the title of yesterday’s post sounded like a recipe, so continuing with that idea we today we have ‘take one child, add a dash of ribbons and swirl together with music.’

Children always have the best play ideas, don’t they? These pictures show B enjoying dancing with the streamers she made after . . . → Read More: Add ribbons and swirl]]>

I loved Jeanne’s comment saying the title of yesterday’s post sounded like a recipe, so continuing with that idea we today we have ‘take one child, add a dash of ribbons and swirl together with music.’

Children always have the best play ideas, don’t they? These pictures show B enjoying dancing with the streamers she made after discovering a forgotten bag of ribbons. She simply tied a one to the end of a stick and was ready to go. Both my girls love dancing but I’ve resisted sending them to an organised dance class for now, instead letting them explore their own dance style.

Create your own dance studio

Dancing is a wonderful activity to develop physical skills and balance and is great for lifting the mood if kids are feeling grouchy. (We love a kitchen disco on a gloomy, rainy day!) It’s a fun way to encourage children to be active,  needs no special equipment and so can enjoyed any time and any where.

To make an at-home dance studio simply create some space by pushing back sofas and moving tables, or even try some dancing outside.

Offer different styles of music for the children to try out and see how they move differently as the music changes. You could try this, this or this!

If you want you can provide some added extras such as B’s streamers or scarves and pieces of floaty fabric.

Then leave the children to it, to enjoy moving their bodies and choreographing their own dance routines.

Are your children dancers?

happily shared with smart summer challenge and  for the kids friday  happiness is and  it’s playtime and  made by you monday

You don’t often hear me recommending more screen time for children but we’ve been having fun this week with the Champion of the Playground site from Robinsons Fruit Shoot.

Fruit Shoot.com lets you get active by playing a variety of skills based games and watching skills based videos, picking up tips so you can become the . . . → Read More: Could you be the Champion of the Playground?]]> Sponsored post

You don’t often hear me recommending more screen time for children but we’ve been having fun this week with the Champion of the Playground site from Robinsons Fruit Shoot.

Fruit Shoot.com lets you get active by playing a variety of skills based games and watching skills based videos, picking up tips so you can become the Champion of the Playground. Instead of just being played with the keyboard the games can be linked up to the webcam on your computer so the children have to trampoline and play dodgeball along with the game – great for indoor exercise on a rainy day.

There are masterclass videos too, featuring cool kids who are sharing tips on how to skateboard,  juggle and bodypop. Check out the girl with the hulahoop – my girls were amazed!Robinson Fruit Shoot are also giving away 100 skills kits everyday between now and the end of the summer holidays. The kits contain a digital hacky sack and skipping rope which the kids can use to rack up points to match up with their customised avatar at Fruitshoot.com. B especially likes the digital skipping rope which counts the number of skips she does. It’s adjustable too so she can use it by herself or with a group of friends in the playground, with a few of them skipping together.

I think the site’s a clever combination of online and physical fun and the skills videos are inspiring to watch, encouraging kids to keep practising physical skills to improve their technique.

Visit Fruitshoot.com to try it out the games. Maybe your kids will be the Champion of the Playground?

Five fabulous ideas for a feet theme.

1. Set up a shoe shop: gather together as many different types of shoes as you can: lace-ups, high heels, flippers, wellies, ballet shoes, walking boots, football boots, slippers. Talk about when you would wear all these different types of footwear – what’s special about them? Add in . . . → Read More: Five fabulous ideas for feet]]>

Five fabulous ideas for a feet theme.

1. Set up a shoe shop: gather together as many different types of shoes as you can: lace-ups, high heels, flippers, wellies, ballet shoes, walking boots, football boots, slippers. Talk about when you would wear all these different types of footwear – what’s special about them? Add in some imaginary play and have some of the children be the shop assistants and some be the customers. Add in some maths by measuring everyones feet and graphing the results.

2. Explore movement and see what your feet can do: Play musical statues but have the children try out a different movement each time the music re-starts. Can they walk, hop, skip, run, go backwards, walk on tip toes? Try some other challenges such as seeing if they can pick blocks up with their feet and load them into a bucket. Or hold a crayon between their toes and do some drawing.

3. Discover animals’ feet: use toy animals or print off some pictures and investigate their feet. Talk about paws, hooves, webbed feet, claws and talons. Add some classification practise by sorting the animals into those with no feet, two feet, four feet, lots of feet. How do the animals’ feet suit how they live? Which animals can walk on the ceiling?

4. Make some  footprints: for a great collaborative work of art tape big rolls of paper to the floor and then play some music. Have the children step in some paint and then dance their way over the canvas.

5. Read all about feet: with this fabulous selection of stories suggested by NurtureStore’s Facebook and Twitter friends. (Come and join us on Facebook and Twitter for lots more resources and idea swaps)

Like our ideas? Please VOTE FOR US in the UK Mum and Dad Blog awards!

happily shared with made by little hands Monday and  math Monday and preschool corner and Outdoor Play and  we play and math Monday and Tot School