11/11/2019

Active games for kids

As the air becomes colder and the days get shorter it can sometimes be a challenge to find fun ways to keep kids active in the winter. We believe it’s important for children to stay active all year round and that’s why we have come up with a list of things your children can enjoy this winter to stay active.

Winter walk picnic

Don’t let the cold weather put you off from doing activities outside! Picnics aren’t just for the warmer months, why not dress up warmly and go for a brisk walk to the park and stop off for a winter picnic? Pack some cooked foods, such as burritos, sausage and bacon rolls and keep them warm wrapped up in foil accompanied by a flask of warm healthy soup for the children to enjoy after burning off some energy.

Scavenger hunt

Create a scavenger hunt for the children to enjoy outdoors and indoors. Simply list items with pictures that they can find outside e.g. twigs, pine cones, leaves, animals; you could also include smells and sounds for them to identify in this activity. This is a great way to keep children occupied and put their sensory skills to the test.

Indoor bowling

Indoor bowling is a great activity to do on those rainy days and is a cost-effective way to keep children active. All you need to do is line up some plastic bottles and use a pair of socks rolled up to create a ball to knock over the bottles. If you’d like to make this game more challenging you could add water or sand to the bottles to make them heavier.

Ice skating

Ice skating has been around for years and is a fun activity for the whole family to enjoy. In winter, there’ll be lots of pop up ice rinks opening up and down the country for the Christmas season. This is fantastic reason to get out of the house!

Orienteering

Wrap up and go on an adventure, there are lots of places you can go to locally including the park and woodlands. All you need is a map and a compass to complete the challenge to travel to different points on a map. Each point must have a number or letter, the map will need to show the child which areas they must visit first. Once they’ve arrived, they need to record this on their map. Orienteering is great way to improve map reading skills.

Minute to Win it

Minute to Win it is a series of competitive and exciting games that you need to complete in a minute or under for teams to win the points. This is a game we play at Barracudas and is very popular with children on camp. This is a fantastic activity to do on miserable, drizzly days. There are lots of Minute to Win it games to list, but a popular game that can be played and is suitable for all ages is ‘Defying Gravity’. 3 Inflated balloons must be kept off the ground by only tapping them for the full minute, you’re able to use any part of the body but they can’t touch the floor or you fail. To make it more challenging you could add in more balloons.

These are some of our top picks of activities to do during the winter that we have shared with you. You can also find ‘five ways to keep kids active’ from the BBC for more inspiration.

If you’re thinking about activities to keep them active and having fun in the school holidays, we’ll be announcing our 2020 dates, prices and locations soon! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn for our announcement.