Activity Type:

Challenge

Age Group:

3 and up – can be easily adapted for any age group or fitness level.

Description:

Keeping physically active is an essential part of living a balanced and healthy lifestyle. By using items found around your home and backyard, design, build, and complete an obstacle course that involves seven key aspects of physical fitness.

What You Need:

The central idea with this challenge is to use the spaces and things you may find around your home or in your backyard. This following list is merely a suggestion of where you could begin. Remember – science is about experimentation, and there might be other things around your house that would work just as well or even better than the supplies we've listed here.

• Pens, pencils, markers

• Paper

• String

• Tape

• Bed sheets

• Pillows

• Chairs

• Books

• Cans of food

• Kiddie pool

• Pool noodles

• Scarves

• Skipping ropes

• Sports balls

• Spoons

• Balloons

• Bean bags

• Hula hoops

What You Do:

1. Think about the space you want to design your obstacle course in. Do you want to use your bedroom? Living room? Basement? Backyard? All of the above?

2. Think about the supplies and materials you have available to use. How could you use them to create different obstacles? How do you want to move through them, over them or on them? Where is the start and where is the finish line?

3. Open spaces are a great opportunity to move. What activities can you do without the supplies? (running on the spot, jumping jacks, pretending to play an instrument, dancing, balancing with one foot of the ground, stretching). What activities can you create in your obstacle course that will test your strength, flexibility, endurance, balance, agility, power, and get your heart beat up.

4. Don’t forget to work your brain muscles! Add mental activities to challenge your thinking. Are there any puzzles or brainteasers you may want to create for your obstacle course?

5. Draw a map of what your obstacle course will look like.

6. Build your obstacle course

7. Test out your obstacle course. What worked? What didn’t? How can you improve it? What else can you create for your obstacle course? Challenge yourself to beat your best time.

Explanation:

• In order to be healthy, our bodies need to move every day and need certain types of exercise to be the best body they can be.

• Creating and designing this obstacle course is great mental exercise as well, or exercise for you brain through creative thinking and problem solving. Exercising our brains is just as important as moving our bodies everyday.

• There are seven aspects of physical fitness:

o Cardiovascular – These are activities that get your heart pumping blood through your body and muscles. Great cardiovascular activities include running, walking, swimming, skipping, biking, and jumping.

o Flexibility – These are activities that help develop your range of motion around your joints like your hips, arms, knees, neck etc. Excellent flexibility activities include stretching, yoga, or just touching your toes.

o Muscular Strength – These activities develop how much force your muscles have. Activities for muscular strength include lifting heavier things (like how many books can you lift at one time?), squats, and push-ups.

o Muscular Endurance – These activities develop how many times your muscles can repeat exerting force. For example – how many times can you lift that pile of books? how many push-ups can you do?, before your muscles become too tired an need a rest.

o Power - Power activities develop your ability for speed and bursts of high intensity movements. Examples include sprinting as fast as you can or jumping as high as you can.

o Agility – These activities develop your ability to move in different directions in rapid succession. For example – zigging and zagging around some rocks on the ground, or hop-scotch.

o Balance – Balance activities are all about keeping control of your body while remaining stationary (like standing on one foot, or doing a handstand), or while moving (like walking across the room balancing a book on your head).

Taking It Further:

• How could you make your obstacle course more challenging?

• Have someone time you as go through your obstacle course. How fast can you safely complete it?

• Try doing your obstacle course 3 or 4 times in a row. Then check your heart rate or pulse to see what

• Do your obstacle course each day for a week. Keep an activity journal of your progress. Are you faster at the end of the week than you were at the beginning? Are you able to jump higher? Lift more?

• Use all your senses, paying attention to how your muscles in your arms and legs move. If someone was watching that you were safe, do you think you could do your obstacle course blindfolded? Is it easier or more difficult to do?

Other Thoughts:

• Allow your children to move, create a space in which they can pretend, move and explore. Try creating your obstacle course outdoors or in a park

• You don’t need to use extra supplies or materials. Use objects that are in the environment such as stairs inside or hills in outdoor spaces.

• Encourage questions, imagination and exploration. If an idea seems impossible, let your children explore the idea safely and let them explore solutions even if they do not work. To prevent frustration and encourage overcoming challenges, ask prompting questions such as ‘how can this be changed to have a different outcome?’

• Enjoy a bit of chaos. Take a step back and let imaginative play happen.