PT Recommended Game To Get Your Child Active This Winter
Winter is coming! If your kids are like me, they want to curl up on the couch and avoid all outdoor activities because it’s too cold. So how can you get your child moving this winter when they cannot play outside?
A game that I love to use to get kids active is called Hyper Dash or Ultra Dash!
There are multiple versions of this game at local stores and on Amazon. This game challenges their endurance, running speed, strength, motor planning, and coordination!
The object of the game is to tag the 5 discs with the “tagger.” You can spread the 5 discs around 1 room, around multiple rooms or throughout the house. The “tagger” will turn a color and your child needs to find the disc that is the same color, tag it, and then the “tagger” will turn another color for your child to find. There are several different levels that you can play including: how fast can you get all 5 discs, how many discs can you tag in a certain amount of time, and multi-player where you can play your friend or sibling.
You can play this game in many different ways so kids do not get bored with it!
Different ideas on how to move around to find all the discs include:
- Running
- Skipping
- Galloping
- Walking backward
- Doing a variety of animal walks:
- Bear crawl
- Crab walks
- Frog jumps (jumping on 2 feet)
- Penguin walks (walking on heels with toes in the air)
- Duck walk (crouched down in a squat position)
- Bunny hop (hop on 1 foot)
- Using a scooter board
This is a great game to motivate your child to want to get active around the house even if it is too cold to play outside. It is a safe game and is small enough to be played in almost any space!
-Kelly Steiner, PT, DPT