Our ‘Healthy4Life’ programme helps families across North Tyneside and the title speaks for itself – being healthy is a life-long commitment. Being healthy for one day isn’t going to change your life, the same as having the occasional treat won’t ruin all of your hard work!

So, to turn the ‘a dog is for life, not just for Christmas’ phrase on its head, being healthy is for life, and isn’t to be forgotten at Christmas!

As always, we’re here to help! The Healthy4Life team has created a 12 day guide to a more active and healthy Christmas – with lots of festive fun for the family…

Day seven

Dasher and Donner’s Dance Moves

Christmas is a magical time, but it’s also a time where the kids are off school and need some entertainment!

Dasher and Donner are here to help with some dance themed games you can play indoors to keep the magic alive, and the kids (and adults!) moving.

There’s four games to choose from, let us know which ones are a hit with your kids! The games encourage creativity and imagination and is great for cognitive skills!

The Animal Dance

Write the names of as many different animals as you can think of on separate pieces of paper
Shuffle the papers up and choose one at a time, shouting out the name of the animal
The kids have to act out the movement of the animal, think crawling like an ant, slithering like a snake, and jumping like a frog!

The Paintbrush Dance

The rules are simple, everyone playing needs to imagine they have a paintbrush on a part of their body and paint the space around them!
On different pieces of paper, write down different parts of the body, for example, you can write down hands, feet, elbows, knees, nose, head etc
Take it in turns to choose a piece of paper from the pile and paint the floor and everything around them with that part of their body

Jumping Jive

Get some of the kids favourite songs lined up to play in a row in a mini playlist
As each song plays the kids need to do a different kind of jump, seeing how many jumps they can do, they could compete for the most jumps in a chorus, or in the full song!
Think about high jumps, twisting jumps, weird jumps, jumping jacks, tuck jumps, frog jumps, squat jumps

Remote Dance

Play some music and get the kids up and doing their best dance moves
Using a remote (a real one or a pretend one you’ve made from paper/card) turn the music down and call out a command from the remote
Depending on what your command is will change how the kids dance, for example, fast forward, pause, rewind, or play

The Healthy4Life 12 days to a healthier Christmas: Day seven