Fun Ways to Celebrate National Physical Fitness Month

It make sense that May is National Fitness Month; April is too wet, June is too hot, public pools open on Memorial Day, most professional sports are being played right now, except football (but the draft is in May). May is the perfect time to get outside and get active.

Ensuring kids stay physically fit is more important today than it has ever been. A recent study indicates that due to the obesity epidemic, many parents now cannot distinguish a healthy child from an overweight child. The issue is so important that First Lady Michelle Obama created the Let’s Move! campaign as one of her first efforts to encourage kids to get active for at least 60 minutes a day. There are educational benefits to staying active as well. Being active and moving while studying have been shown to improve focus. Playing team sports has shown to help teach kids both responsibility and humility.

But celebrating national fitness month can really mean finding fun ways to exercise. These include classic outdoor games like playing tag, capture the flag, hula-hooping, or hopscotch, as well as some unique ideas which you’ll find below:

Discover Five Fun Active Games to Keep Kids Learning

fun active games

One of our favorite set of brothers, author John Green and his brother Hank, show how to make competition fun and active

[embedvideo id=”VOMdb5_sWa8″ website=”youtube”]

Read about Eight Obstacle and Mud Races for Kids

8ObstacleMudRacesForKids_LL

BeanstersBytes created a fun video featuring outdoor activities for toddlers

[embedvideo id=”eTFxproLTdM” website=”youtube”]

Be sure to check our Pinterest board for fun outdoor activities.

Include your favorite games to play in the comments!


Featured Image – Tim Pierce / CC by 2.0

Related Articles

Join our community

Sign up to participate in America’s premier community focused on helping students
reach their full potential.