We finish the topic of Valentine’s Day with today’s post. Yesterday, we wrote on Facebook about the public awareness campaign Dbaj o Serce – Kampanii Społecznej (Take care of your heart – Public Awareness Campaign). We’ve been inspired by materials for children created especially for the Campaign. We strongly encourage you to take a look at the Campaign’s website. Today, we have a game for you which will encourage your children to stop watching TV and exercise a little bit. The game is easy and may be freely modified. You will need three basic elements: a list of exercises, a dice and prizes. Let’s focus on details.
WE WILL NEED:
- Felt / other material
- Scissors
- Groats or other legumes
- Thread with a needle or glue (silicone glue would be the best)
- Paper
- Marker
- Dice
Step 1 - Preparing for the game
Let’s begin with the most difficult part – prizes. Take felt or other material and cut out hearts of the same size. Sew (or glue) two hearts together leaving a small hole on one side. Use the hole to fill hearts with groats, beans or rice and then sew it. Prizes may be anything else you can think of. We’ve chosen hearts because they symbolise health and fitness. If you don’t have time or the will to sew hearts, you can just cut them out from coloured paper. You can prepare as many prizes as you want, but there should be at least as many prizes as exercises.
Step 2 - Preparing for the game
Now, it’s time to move on to exercises. Prepare small paper squares and give them numbers (we numbered them from 1 to 6). Draw icons with sports activities on the wrong side of squares. These can be crunches, bows, jumps, jumping jacks, jump rope exercises, and so on. If you want to prepare more exercises, you will need another dice.
Step 2 - The game
Let’s begin! Children throw the dice and pick the card with the same number. Then, they throw the dice once again and repeat the exercise as many times as shown on the dice. Children receive a prize for every properly done exercise. The prize may be a heart or anything else you want. That’s all! It took 10 minutes for my daughter to lay on the ground breathless, so I think these exercises work. We hope that you will also find them useful.
