Childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes have increased by epidemic proportions. What can a parent do to help? As a starter, get your children walking more. Get them away from the tube and video games, put on the runners, and walk.
To make it more interesting and educational for young children, try one of these 3 activities.
ABC Walk
As you are walking, look for items that start with each letter of the alphabet. A variation would be to pick a Letter-of-the-Day and find all items that start with that letter. Another variation could be the Critter ABC Walk which requires that each item you use has to be an animal or insect. You could include common plants as well.
Colour Walk
Pick a hue for the day and find everything that has that colour. Alternatively, play the traditional I Spy game. For those unfamiliar with I Spy, one person locates an item and states, for example, "I spy with my little eye something that is red". Then the other participants must look around and guess which red item is the one that was chosen. Since you are walking as well, then you have to guess it before you get out of range.
123 Walk
Our first activity involved learning to use our ABCs. We can also learn to count while walking. The simplest variation of this one is to count sections of sidewalk, or count the number of birds you see, or the number of trucks that pass by, or any myriad of other objects. You could also mix the 123 walk and the colour walk by counting just red cars, etc. Another variation would be to set a special walking style, like "take 2 big steps and the 3 tiny steps". Then count as you go, 1-2, 1-2-3. This also works their walking fine motor skills.
Conclusion
There are many other ideas that you can come up with. Just get your imaginations going. In fact, based on this article, encourage your pre-schooler to use their imagination to create a new activity while you walk!
