The physical teacher from your son’s elementary school has worked overtime to create a menu full of items that children can select from to stay active while they are away from school in these most unusual times. The goal for remote learning in PE class, according to the teacher, is to allow the students to be physically active at home while at the same time making an effort to limit their screen time. The PE teacher informed you and other parents that the students are expected to participate in the activities tow to three times a week for 20 to 25 minutes. He has provided photos of himself demonstrating the different fitness exercises, and has included everything from forgotten jump rope rhymes and how to use a deck of cards to exercise.
Whether the students are pulling an eight of spades that indicates eight pushups or they are following along, with their parents, to some relaxing morning yoga, the teacher has provided many ideas of how to keep your son active while he is learning from home. The fact that the students, often with the help of their parents, will decide which activity they will be completing for the day, serves as a motivator and allows children to know that even in these challenging times they have choices they can make.
Teachers across the nation are in unprecedented waters as they try to convert what they do in a school building to what they do at home. In an effort to make the remote learning more successful, the teachers and administrators are encouraging parents to find a way to be involved. For adults who are stressing themselves about the challenges of this pandemic, many physical education teachers are encouraging their parents to complete these kinds of activities with their children. In fact, challenges to create contests between parents and adults may even lead to a more physically fit family!
Staying Active During Times of Stress Is a Great Way Helps Your Mental and Physical Health
As the nation makes plans for how they will work from home and educate their children from home, it should come as no surprise that parents are looking through closets and basements for any and every kind of indoor soft play equipment that they have. And while there are many who fear that the public playground structures may harbor the Coronavirus, there are many others who are looking for ways to find indoor soft play equipment, and even the smallest commercial indoor play structures, for their homes.
Creating an indoor playground option for kids is an important part of the plan as parents have to find ways to deal with weather that will force indoor recess at home as the spring rains arrive. In the best of times there are many children and families that do not get enough physical activity, but with the suspension and cancellations of all kinds of athletic practices and team workouts this month, there are even more threats to the nation’s health.
Consider some of these facts and figures about the already risky health of the nation when it comes to the amount of physical exercise that people get:
- 66% of parents worry that their child spends too much time on electronic devices.
- Researchers found that children would engage in more exercise if their parents did too when they followed more than 1,000 families with activity trackers.
- Nationally, the childhood obesity rate is 18.5%, serving as a precursor to other kinds of adult health problems.
- The American Heart Association recommends that children over the age of two engage in at least one hour a day of moderate physical activity.
From creative indoor playgrounds created by the children themselves to the sometimes forgotten indoor soft play equipment that is lurking in the closets and basements of many homes, now is the time to make sure that you are doing everything in your power as a parent to make sure that you are helping your children stay active. Taking some much needed time away from your own work tasks to join in the play with the indoor soft play equipment or an indoor playground for kids might help you feel better too!