Cabin Fever: 3 Ways to Burn Off Kids' Energy Afterschool

I am going to hazard a guess that I'm not the only one whose kids are off the wall these days. It's easy to identify the culprit because this happens every year: Winter. Here in Pennsylvania, the weather has turned bitterly cold and gray, and lately the kids rarely get outside for recess. That means that the boys are like little springs, wound tighter and tighter through the school day, and when they get home - BOING! - they are unsprung. With no snow to play in and icy wind, it is hard to send the kids outside (I sure don't want to go outside), which means all of that energy is tornading through the house.

So what is a momma to do? For me, the most challenging time is the downtime between when the boys get home and when we sit down for dinner. I can't take them anywhere to burn off that energy, like I might on the weekends. So here are 3 ways we get them moving in a focused way.  These all work great, I just need to be more conscientious about making this a part of our after school routine on the coldest of days.

1) Send the kids for a run. When we get out of the car, I challenge the boys to run a couple of laps around the yard. Using the stopwatch feature on my phone, Zip in particular loves this. He goes tearing around the house, seeing how fast he can make it back to me. A couple rounds of that and at least we are walking into the house a little mellower.

 2) On-Demand yoga. Our cable company includes kids' fitness shows on-demand. We have Comcast, where the shows are listed under Fitness in the Kids menu, but I bet other companies have something similar. One of the boys' favorite (and mine) is yoga with Jodi Komitor. The routines are just 10-12 minutes each and the poses are explained in ways the kids can relate to, with themes like animals or rainbows or the desert. So darn cute! We throw a couple of towels on the floor  as "mats," which helps them stay in their own space.

3) Active video games, like the Wii or Kinect. There are some great games that really get kids moving, challenge their coordination and build stamina, or require problem solving. We don't do a whole lot of video games, but on a cold or rainy day they are a great outlet. Kinect Adventures! is a good one for moving around, and the boys also like running "races" with the Wii Fit.

And of course there is a fourth option: Just suck it up, bundle up, and get outside. Sometimes we do that too.

Help me out! What are your tricks for getting the kids moving when it is freezing outside?