Make Fitness More Fun with a Spelling Workout

Whether you’re a gym teacher looking for something fun to do with your kids on rainy days or a parent with the same problem, this alphabet workout from 730 Sage Street is a great thing to have handy.

Each letter of the alphabet corresponds to a particular movement, such as jumping up and down 10 times (A), bending down and touching your toes 20 times (S) or 10 pushups (Z).

The idea is that you can spell your name and do the workout you get.

I have problems with this in a big group, because some kids will have short names and some long (and some like my poor kid, whose name is short but who has repeating letters). Maybe with a group or for kids with really long names you could have them work out their initials, or choose a four-letter word or roll dice to choose a certain number of letters or something to make it a little more fair.

Also, there are somersaults, cartwheels and pushups on this list, which not every kid of every age can do, but this is a fun place to start building in some playful exercise.

There are two versions of this workout for adults, too, if you want to get in on the fun. Or use the kid’s version and work out alongside your kiddos.

[Photo via 730 Sage Street.]

If you are looking for fun active games to get the kids moving, I highly recommend this Floor Is Lava Board Game

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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