Five Indoor Exercises for Winter Months

Winter is a time of hibernation, right? Oh, wait, we aren’t bears. Well, that means we STILL need to get our exercise during these winter months. Though traditional exercise like playing ball, jumping on the yard trampoline or riding bikes is typically out, there are still many ways to ensure your kids are getting the benefits of exercise during the winter months.

There are many benefits to exercising that I’m sure we all know. They are important to us and they are equally important to our children. Here are 5 indoor exercises to keep your kids moving in these cold, winter months.

#1     Stair Climb – Each day have the kids walk or run up and down the stairs 5 times. If you have a competitive bunch, time them one at a time and see if they beat their last score to score points for a week end or month end prize.

#2     Individual Trampoline – Use a small, indoor trampoline to expend some energy. Have each child jump for 3 minutes after completing each subject or 15 minutes while watching a learning video, practicing their times tables or spelling words while jumping on the trampoline. Don’t have a trampoline? If you have room in the house or garage, consider jump roping for the same cardiovascular workout while learning.

#3     Crab Crawl Maze – Have the kids take 15 minutes and crab walk or bear walk around the house in a maze. You can play follow the leader or just give them an obstacle course or maze of chairs and furniture to go through. You could have them crab crawl one way and bear walk back the other way. You can have them race if you have room or just race against their last best score or a timer. Whatever is motivating or interesting to your student is best. You can make a maze or obstacle course with chairs, furniture or blocks and toys.

#4     Dance Party – For a break in the morning or afternoon or even the end of the school day, have a dance party. Put on music (you could alternate the days between the students and even yourself) and dance through one whole song. If you have a Wii or Playstation, you could do a Dance Party song on there for points but you don’t anything fancy to have fun. Just put on the music and dance. Act silly and get that heart rate up. It’s fun, de-stressing and good exercise. You can use your day to choose music you want to share with your kids. They will have fun learning retro dance moves and hearing music you loved when you were a kid.

#5     Balloon Volleyball – One of our favorites is balloon volleyball. If you have some balloons laying in a drawer somewhere, just blow up a balloon and pair up or make teams and keep the balloon airborne. You can set up a net or a line on the floor if you REALLY want the volleyball feel but you can just make it a rule that you have to keep it in the air and get it to the other person without so many hits or no limit, just get it there without touching the ground. Play for 15 minutes and get that heart rate up.

Don’t forget to stretch. Stretching is a good exercise for everyone and is a great way to get ready for some exercise and calm down after. It’s good for everyone so make sure you stretch out too.

How do you incorporate exercise into your day during the winter months? I would love to hear some more suggestions.

Tawnee Hinton is a baby-wearing, classically educating, military, homeschool mama. She and her husband, Chris, have 4 children and live in Indiana. Chis and Tawnee are involved in their church, local homeschooling group and in community veterans’ projects. She blogs about parenting and their homeschooling adventures at Adventures in Homeschooling.