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Winter Entertaining Activities for Kids


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Fun things for your kids during Winter

Entertaining your kids during winter is a challenge, and winter days can seem long when you’re cooped up inside your house. Watching movie can entertain your kids but only for a short period of time. When things are looking cold and gloomy take some time playing with your kids, most parents don’t have time to do some fun activities with their kids, so why not have a break and have some fun with your kids.

Here are some activities that your child will surely enjoy.

Finger painting

Kids love messing their hands, this activity can be started at an early age, with proper supervision.  This is a fun indoor creative activity, sticking their tiny finger in those gooey colorful paints and coming out with their own creation.

Playing Musical instruments
Kids love playing different kinds of instruments especially drums, which they can create on their own, teach your children to create drums out of empty cans, oatmeal boxes. Show them something unique about sound by filling out three glasses of water with varying amounts of water, then tap on each glass with a spoon to hear different tones.

Threading or beading
One great activity for a toddler is threading, if you are worried about the small beads that might be swallowed by your child, you can use large macaroni style noodles and a yarn, you can let your child create their own style of accessory.

Creating crafts and arts
Since its winter snowman is in demand, so why not teach your child to create their snowman out of cotton balls, or they can draw snowman with different colored crayons or markers.  Another fun activity is creating paper snowflakes, folding and cutting is required in this activity so better supervise your kids when using scissors, they can little diamonds and shapes along folded edges and along the bottom. Then, open and voila! You have a snowflake! These make great window decorations.

Dough making/baking cookies
Another fun and exciting activity for your kids is teach them how to make cookies, they can create what shape and flavor they want, sugar cookies are easy to make and fun to decorate.

Play-doh or clay is also a creative activity for winter; you can use your rolling pin or waxed paper and a book to flatten and then make designs with cookie cutters.

Spending time with your kids is very important to create a bond between you and your child.  Always spare sometime entertaining your kids and play with them.

Mike Hawks has been a dad for several years. When he is not busy entertaining his children, he spends a lot of time finding the latest on Squinkies. Mike is sharing his knowledge by writing article and doing toys blog.

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Exercise improves math skills of overweight kids


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According to experts, the ability of overweight children to think, plan and practice math is enhanced once they start exercising. Lead researcher Catherine Davis, a clinical health psychologist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta, said, “This implies that chronic sedentary behavior is compromising children’s ability and achievement. “We know that exercise is good for you, but we didn’t have very good evidence before this that it would help children do better in school.”

Details of the study

In a bid to assess whether physical activity enhances mathematics ability, the researchers recruited 171 children, aged seven to 11 years. All the kids were overweight and had a sedentary lifestyle at the onset of the study.

The children were split into three groups. The first was assigned to 20 minutes of aerobic exercise after school. The second group followed 40 minutes of exercise while the third got no exercise. Children assigned to the exercise regimen indulged in vigorous activities like running games, hula hoops and jump ropes. The kids underwent a test to measure their academic, reading and math skills with the help of Cognitive Assessment System and Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III. In addition, some kids also received functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the areas of brain activity.

Outcome of the study

Kids who were physically active exhibited increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain linked with decision making, planning and correct social behavior. It was noted that the more the kids exercised, the better was the outcome. After a period of three months, students who exercised for 40 minutes daily enhanced their intelligence scores by an average of 3.8 points. Kids who exercised 20 minutes also displayed an increase in their intelligence scores, though to a smaller degree. Though, an improvement was noted in the math skills of the study subjects there was no apparent difference in their reading abilities. Davis stated, “That’s exciting and has important implications. I think it shows that children being sedentary may adversely impact their ability to do mathematics. And that’s very important.”

A plausible explanation

Though the study focused on overweight kids, researchers are optimistic that the findings will also translate to normal weight kids. Experts attribute the cognitive improvements to brain stimulation that came from exercise. Davis stated, “I hope these findings will help re-establish physical activity’s important place in schools in helping kids stay physically well and mentally sharp. For children to reach their potential, they need to be active.” Details of the findings are published in ‘Health Psychology.’

For more information check out nutrition for children

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