Exercise and Educate Kids with These Fun Family Activities

Taking care of a growing toddler goes beyond feeding and bathing the child. Playtime where both parents participate is extremely important as well. Learning how to have fun with your children will not only result in a closer family relationship, you can also use that time to educate you kids and give them an early (but fun) start for school.

Below are a few fun activities to get you started:

Build a fort â€" Pillows and blankets aren’t just for sleeping, you know. If you and your kids are up for it, why not build a fort together? You and your kids will have so much buildingâ€"and staying in it. A fort can easily be built using some pillows, cushions, and blankets. Use a bunk bed, couch, dining table, or chairs to serve as the fort’s foundation. Exactly how to build it is up to you, but generally, you want to put blankets over the areas where light can enter. Once you’re done, you can go inside your masterpiece for story telling time and other bonding activities.

Sing or dance together â€" Exercise your kids’ speech and motor skills by encouraging song and dance. You’ll find a lot of nursery rhymes and action songs that your kids will surely enjoy. Need to pick up some songs or dance moves? Try watching shows like Sesame Street or do a search on YouTube for songs and actions that you can do with your kids.

Bring out the play dough â€" Playing with clay isn’t just an enjoyable activity, it can be an educational one too. If you’ve already introduced shapes and colors, use play dough as a way to refresh your kids’ memory. Allow them to create the shapes out of the dough and point out different colors.

Build stuff together â€" LEGO almost always makes it to the top of the list of kids’ favorite toys. Like play dough, building stuff out of plastic bricks is an enjoyable and educational activity at the same time. It’s an effective way to exercise your child’s mind. For example, you can ask them to build the things printed on the LEGO box exactly as they are, or if you want to be more flexible, you can ask them to use their imagination. Either way, a kid effectively makes use of his or her brain with LEGO blocks.

Head to the pool â€" Swimming is a fun and physically beneficial activity at the same time. So bring out the lifesavers and towels, and head to the pool. You and your kids are sure to have a blast splashing around, especially during the summer time. Besides, swimming is a skill that can definitely come in handy in the future, so if you and your kids are up for it, how about some swimming lessons?

Hide and seek â€" Whether your kid is doing the hiding or the seeking, this game will certainly exercise his or her reasoning skills. This is a great game that you can do from the comfort of your home and it’s probably one of the most low-maintenance games out there because it doesn’t require the use of toys or any other materials.

Image credit: IvanWalsh.com on Flickr