Last updated: June 26, 2020 at 12:35 p.m.
Stay at home and stay active.
Take time out of your day to take care of your body with simple, at-home exercises.
Warmup for your workout by:
If you can’t bend to 90 degrees, go as low as you can.
Instead of keeping your legs straight by balancing on your toes, try keeping your legs straight by putting your knees on the floor.
During step 6:
These activities are great for kids age 4 to 12 and can be adapted for larger groups.
Try doing each movement for 45 seconds, with 15 seconds of rest in between each one.
Up your Simon Says game or just explore the different ways your body can move!
You can also pretend to:
You will need two dice.
If you get:
Act out these poses and hold the stretch for 10 seconds.
Draw two wheels on a paper. One wheel divided into six (known as the exercise spinner), and one divided into ten (known as the 1-10 spinner). First, spin the exercise spinner, using a pen and paperclip. Then, spin the 1-10 spinner to tell you how many times you do that exercise.
All you need is a blown-up balloon. Younger participants should be supervised at all times as broken or popped balloons may present a choking hazard.
In this version of musical chairs, everyone gets to keep playing!
Get 3 pairs of socks, each one rolled and tucked into a ball.
Toss one sock ball from one hand to the other hand. It should be a bit higher than your head.
Practice until it is consistent. A consistent throw is key to juggling.
Use the throw, throw, catch, catch rhythm to juggle two sock balls. Replace one of your claps from The Single Toss with the second sock ball.
Once you have mastered Throw, Throw, Catch, Catch:
Replace the clap from Throw, Throw, CLAP, Catch, Catch with the third sock ball.
Tips:
These activities are great for kids age 4 to 12 and can be adapted for smaller groups.
For this activity, each team will need:
Have the equipment for each team in front of that team or in a specified area. Divide the children into teams and have them line up behind the starting line.
On “go”, the first person runs to the equipment pile and picks up one piece of equipment, runs to the designated place to build the snowman and puts it in place. They then return back to the line. The next person then takes their turn.
Players continue until all the equipment has been placed in place and the snowman is built. You can use your imagination and add other equipment. The first team to build their snowman is the winning team.
Shoes or something easy to hold.
Teams are divided evenly and each person is designated a number. Each team stands on opposite sides with a shoe sitting in the middle. When a number is called, the designated players from each team run for the coveted item and try to get it back to their side. If you succeed, you get a point.
This Rainbow Tag game is capture-the-flag meets hide-and-seek. Play in your backyard, a park or around your neighbourhood. Hide five tongue depressors or popsicle sticks, each with a different colour painted on it, and matching face paint sticks nearby. When players find a different-coloured stick, they put a line of that colour on their faces. An additional player – Pinky – lurks, trying to tag the players. Each time a player gets tagged, Pinky wipes a colour off his or her face. The first player with all five colours wins!
This bean bag ladder toss is a fun backyard game. Label each rung of the ladder with points. Throw bean bags between the rungs and try to get as many points as possible. Play solo or divide into teams.
A ball
To play, designate someone as It for the first round. This child throws a ball high in the air and shouts another player’s name. Everyone runs away except the called player, who must try to catch the ball as quickly as possible. Once the player grabs the ball, they yell “SPUD!” and everyone freezes. The player then throws the ball at someone else. If the ball makes contact, that person gets an “S” and becomes the next “It.” The first one to get the full set of letters (S-P-U-D) is eliminated from the game.
Draw a 6 to 10 foot/1.8 to 3 metre square on a paved surface. Divide the larger square into four smaller squares, number the squares 1 to 4, and have each child stand in a block.
The player in square 4 serves the ball by bouncing it in his square and tapping the ball into another square. The player in that space must tap the ball (after one bounce) into another kid’s area, and so on, until someone misses the ball, lets the ball bounce twice, or sends it out of the grid. The player who misses the ball steps out and the remaining players rotate up through the numbered squares. If you are playing with more than four players, a new player enters the game at square 1. The player who is out waiting in line to re-enter the game once square 1 is open again. Whoever is now in square 4 serves the ball to resume play.
Tips:
With each round, change up the movement. Instead of walking around, try hopping, skipping or crawling.
Music can be played too, and players could dance around. Instead of yelling “the floor is lava”, the music could change or stop. The caller could also change the type of movement to do to get to the stone.
Set up the obstacle course:
Compete to see who can get through the fastest.
A big enough space to allow for some running.
Mix it up with different colour lights:
Suggested Commands:
Call out “light the dynamite!”
This game is played much like the classic backyard game of freeze tag, but the player who is “it” has to act like a monkey. When a player is tagged, rather than freezing in place, he or she jumps around and acts like a monkey. Once a player is turned into a monkey, he or she has to continue to imitate a monkey and helps the original monkey tag the remaining players
Cut banana shapes from yellow cardstock, and write the word “monkey” on one of them. Write the names of other safari animals on the remaining bananas. Place them in a safari hat. Have the kids gather in a circle and take turns picking a banana out of the hat. If a player chooses an animal other than the monkey, he or she has to run around the circle imitating that animal. When a player chooses the monkey banana, however, he or she is the lucky winner of a prize or treat. Keep playing until everyone has a turn to be the lucky monkey.
Like the classic game of charades, this activity requires players to act something out without using any words. Write the names of various jungle animals on notecards, fold them up, and place them in a safari hat. Players will pull an animal name out of the hat and try and get the others to guess the name of the jungle animal using only gestures and motions.
Basically you get a big bag of plastic animals and hide them around the house. The kids can then put on their safari hats and binoculars and go hunt for animals. At the end of the hunt, the kids then count their animals and the winners go in order of who has the most plastic animals. There is a prize or treat for each place.
One person is the lion and stands at one end of the yard. The kids are at the other end of the yard. The kids yell together, “Lion, Lion, are you hungry?” to which the Lion will say “No, not really, come closer”. The kids will all come a little closer and ask the question again. This happens over and over until the Lion finally answers “Yes”! At this point, he or she tries to catch as many children as possible and they become lions too. The game starts over, with the new lions on one side of the yard and the other kids on the other side of the yard.
When the children come through the door, tape an animal or animal item/object to their backs. They may ask each other “yes and no questions” about what they are. Explain that the first question they may want to ask is “Am I an animal or an object?” In the end, each child takes a turn saying what they think they are. Suggestions: Elephant, frog, lion, birds etc.
Separate the players into two teams. On the relay course, you will need an object that the kids will need to run around or touch on the other side of the playing field before they can return to their team and the next person in line takes their turn. A large potted plant or stuffed animal on a chair is a great idea for a turnaround point in the relay race.
Set two large pieces of paper side by side on a table or clip them next to each other on a large easel. Tell one partner that he is the leader and instruct him to paint a picture, one step at a time.
Instruct the other partner to follow the leader, painting the exact same shapes and lines in the same places on his paper. Set a timer for a few minutes to indicate when that partner’s turn is over and then switch.
One player thinks of a famous character from a book or movie. The other players must ask questions about the character, such as “Where does this character live?” or “What does this character enjoy doing?” until the players can guess the celebrity’s identity.
One person starts by saying the phrase, “I’m going to Grandma’s House and I’m taking an…” and finishes the sentence with an item that starts with the letter A. The next person repeats the phrase and finishes the sentence with an item that begins with a B. The pattern continues with the rest of the alphabet.
1 balloon for each player
Cereal boxes
Toilet Paper
Keep active and try to walk 10,000 steps a day! By recording your steps or your kilometres (km), you can track your progress and stay motivated.
Tips:
Compare your progress with the popular real and fictional locations in the following chart.
| Location | km | Steps | Minutes | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto Island – Hanlan’s Point to Ward’s Island | 5 | 6463 | 47 | Less than 1 Hour |
| High Park Loop Trail | 5 | 7013 | 51 | Less than 1 Hour |
| Climb to the top of Mount Logan | 6 | 8113 | 59 | Less than 1 Hour |
| Stanley Park in British Columbia (BC) | 9 | 12375 | 90 | 2 |
| New York Central Park | 10 | 13338 | 97 | 2 |
| Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island (PEI) | 13 | 17738 | 129 | 2 |
| Wasaga Beach | 14 | 19250 | 140 | 2 |
| Distance of Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Subway Bloor Line | 26 | 36025 | 262 | 4 |
| Scarborough to Etobicoke | 35 | 48675 | 354 | 6 |
| Marathon | 42 | 58018 | 422 | 7 |
| Yonge Street | 56 | 77000 | 560 | 9 |
| Martin Goodman Trail | 56 | 77000 | 560 | 9 |
| Across Lake Ontario | 85 | 116875 | 850 | 14 |
| Walk the Toronto Border | 120 | 165000 | 1200 | 20 |
| Toronto City Hall to Niagara Falls, Ontario (ON) | 127 | 175038 | 1273 | 21 |
| Toronto to Niagara Falls, ON | 128 | 176000 | 1280 | 21 |
| Cabot Trail | 298 | 409750 | 2980 | 50 |
| Toronto City Hall to Ottawa Parliament Building | 384 | 527450 | 3836 | 64 |
| Confederation Trail, PEI | 435 | 598125 | 4350 | 73 |
| Bruce Trail | 885 | 1216875 | 8850 | 148 |
| From London to possible location of Hogwarts in Harry Potter | 966 | 1327714 | 9656 | 161 |
| Great Divide Trail in Alberta and BC | 1200 | 1650000 | 12000 | 200 |
| Great Barrier Reef | 2300 | 3162500 | 23000 | 383 |
| From Winterfell to King’s Landing in Game of Thrones | 2414 | 3319250 | 24140 | 402 |
| From the Shire to Mordor in Lord of the Rings | 2863 | 3936625 | 28630 | 477 |
| Rocky Mountains | 3000 | 4125000 | 30000 | 500 |
| Longest distance from Canada’s north to south – Cape Columbia, Northwest Territories to Middle Island, ON | 4627 | 6362125 | 46270 | 771 |
| Toronto City Hall to the North Pole | 4694 | 6454883 | 46945 | 782 |
| Distance Terry Fox Ran | 5373 | 7387875 | 53730 | 896 |
| Longest distance from Canada’s east to west – Cape Spear, Newfoundland, to the Yukon/Alaska boundary | 5514 | 7581750 | 55140 | 919 |
| Algonquin Park | 7630 | 10491250 | 76300 | 1272 |
| From Arctic to Antarctica | 18750 | 25781250 | 187500 | 3125 |
| Great Wall of China | 21196 | 29144500 | 211960 | 3533 |
| Around the World | 40075 | 55103125 | 400750 | 6679 |
| Earth to Moon | 382500 | 525937500 | 3825000 | 63750 |