I’ve decided to summarize our Know More Do More campaign participation every Monday.* This is the first one.
I drew our first family activity on Rogers Daytime last week, so, much to my chagrin, I had actual witnesses. Marie Claude Turcotte (Manager of the School Age Program for Ottawa Public Health), the hosts and crew of Daytime, as well as all the people out there in TV-land watched as I pulled the following from the tip jar:
“Go for a family bike ride around your neighborhood or local park.”
And the statistic with which it was paired:
“Only 34% of parents report frequent use of parks and spaces.”
So here is where life gets in the way of good intentions, because it didn’t actually turn out the way I had envisioned.
This week we:
- Did some yard work (as did the girls, in fact, they got out there before Marh and I did).
- Did a cursory clean up of the garage. I put some of our old toys out by the curb. (They were gone in 10 minutes!) Paring down our stuff clears space for the toys the girls access on a regular basis and makes them easier to grab n’ go. Soccer balls, tennis rackets, skateboards, scooters, frisbees etc.
- I took a hammer and some nails, untangled a crow’s nest of skipping ropes and hung them on the wall. I’m still not sure how the girls ended up with so many of them, but at least they are ACCESSIBLE now. Yay!
Mark pumped up our bike tires a few weeks ago (so no additional work there) but the girls did give their bikes a scrub down with a couple of sea sponges and a bucket of hot soapy water.
I would have liked to take a bike trip to some faraway destination, like the epic bike tour we did last summer (ok, maybe it was only epic for us) but I’m not sure Mark would have wanted to bike. He’s been biking to and from work (10km each way) and it’s been leaving him rather pooped at the end of the day. What’s worse, he’s not happy with the bike he bought two summers ago – it’s not as comfortable as his old bike – and unfortunately there’s no remedy for that right now.
So ours wasn’t going to be a big journey. I decided to use this activity to illustrate how far daddy bikes to work. I summoned an image of our neighborhood on Google maps and plotted a 2km loop. We’ve biked farther than this as a family, but I wanted to use THIS distance as a measure against other distances and use it to illustrate How Far Things Are. I thought this would be a good way to help them visualize how far 10km is exactly.
It took us 10 minutes to bike the loop, and when we got back I was able to describe 10km as “five times what we just biked.” I think they got it. And they appreciated what Mark has been doing twice daily.
Yes, it’s fitness AND math AND a lesson in bike safety! Woo!
Anyway, it went well. And although that particular little tip will be removed from the jar, the activity certainly won’t be removed from our repertoire. Biking is one of our favourite things to do as a family.
ALSO, the puppy has been great in terms of bringing an extra little bit of fitness to our lives. Our after dinner strolls have us walking more briskly (who am I kidding, we’re running after the dog) and it’s injected a lot more fun into it too. I’m not even counting the twice/thrice daily walks we take just to stretch our legs. Phew.
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This post is part of the Know More Do More initiative spearheaded by the Champlain Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Network. KMDM is about empowering parents and inspiring them to take charge of their children’s health by taking easy steps to increase activity levels and improve eating habits. I’m one of two champion families who has been asked to take this challenge. You can join too. Check out the official website for more information. You can also get healthy tips by following @knowmoredomore on Twitter. If you’re blogging about your participation, please let me know so we can cheer each other on!
