Get kids out for some Easter
IT’S no secret that chocolate is full of sugar, fat and calories. But putting it into perspective may help you balance out how much you and your kids eat.
For example, a Cadbury’s creme egg is 180 calories, a Smarties Easter egg (122g) is 680 calories, and a Dairy Milk Easter egg (331g) is 1,758 calories.
For the average person it will take about 30 minutes of moderate activity to burn off a single cream egg. And a full five hours to burn off the Dairy Milk Easter egg! Moderate exercise is the type that gets your heart beating a little faster and you feeling a little warmer.
So, bear this in mind when you find yourself finishing off your kid’s chocolate stash, or when you realise your eldest has eaten four eggs in one go.
As a guide, an average man needs around 2,500 a day to maintain a healthy body weight, and an average woman needs around 2,000, with kids needing less. So, eating an entire Dairy Milk Easter egg will almost double your daily intake in one sitting.
EARN THEIR TREATS
THE Easter egg hunt has been around for a long time and is a great way to ensure kids work hard for their treats.
While little kids will enjoy simply running around the garden searching for eggs, school age children will benefit from a fun assault course. Encouraging them to climb and use their body strength to get to hard to reach places, or setting them a task of bunny hopping around the garden will get their hearts beating that little bit faster.
For older children, egg hunts can be a way of developing their orienteering skills while covering a much wider area. Whether it’s in the local park, woodland or up in the hills, they are all ideal hunting grounds for bigger kids in need of a mental and physical challenge.
Setting them a task to search for eggs on a map in return for the real thing will challenge them mentally, while stating a time limit will encourage them to race from post to post and get them moving.
A more technologically advanced Easter egg hunt can come through geocaching, which requires participants to follow GPS co-ordinates to find a treat.
If there isn’t an organised geocache egg hunt that covers your area, you could reward the kids with a treat for completing a regular hunt in an allotted time.
While you want children to enjoy their Easter egg hunt, and the chocolate that comes with it, why not swap out some of the sweet stuff for little gifts?
These don’t have to be expensive and could even be linked to them moving more – skipping ropes, bouncy balls and hula hoops can all be picked up for the same price as chocolate eggs!
SEND THEM AWAY
LESSONS may have stopped, but most schools, leisure centres and sports clubs will remain open during the Easter holidays. Many will run dedicated sports camps helping kids perfect their skills or learn a new sport.
Two weeks is a long time to go without routine, so encouraging the kids to go along, if only for a couple of mornings, will not only keep them active and healthy, but help make the return to school much more tolerable.
It’s worth checking this out as soon as possible to avoid disappointment and ensure you secure a place for your child.
Lots of gyms and sports clubs offer free taster sessions over the
Easter holidays, so it’s the perfect time to try something new and see if any of the activities pique your kids’ interest.
GET OUTDOORS
IF forecasters are to be believed, this April will be the hottest on record, which means there will be plenty of opportunity to make the most of being outdoors with the family.
Whether it’s an afternoon running about the park, playing football in the back garden, tennis down the local leisure centre or a family bike ride, there are plenty of activities which will entertain the kids while burning off excess energy and calories.
Take time to plan ahead – both for wet and fine weather – so you have a loose itinerar y to follow. Even if the weather is awful there are lots of indoor activities, like trampolining, swimming, soft play and bowling.
Involving children, parents, grandparents and other carers in the plans will ensure that your kids have a fun-filled holiday without breaking the bank or, more importantly, spending too much time infront of their screens.