A couple of 5th graders named Michelle and Casen recently asked me:

What advice would you give us when we know we should exercise, but we just don’t feel up for it?

My answer to them is what I’d tell anyone, child or adult:

Don’t look at it as exercise — instead, play games and sports and have a ton of fun! The main thing is just to get outside every day and do something you think is fun.

You can play games like freeze tag or ride a bike or do running races with your friends or family. You can go on hikes with your family or go swimming or paddling. Do lots of different things, and again, focus on having fun, and doing it often.

Michelle and Casen’s class, which has created the excellent Kids Read and Ride program, took this advice to heart and came up with 48 Fun Ways to Exercise. This is a good list for anyone:

1. Aerobics
2. Ballet
3. Baseball
4. Basketball
5. Biking
6. Boating
7. Bowling
8. Boxing
9. Canoeing
10. Dance Revolution
11. Dancing
12. Double Dutch
13. Field Hockey
14. Football
15. Frisbee
16. Golf
17. Gymnastics
18. Hiking
19. Hockey
20. Hopscotch
21. Horseback Riding
22. Hula hooping
23. Ice Skating
24. Jogging
25. Juggling
26. Jump rope
27. Laser tag
28. Paintball
29. Ping-Pong
30. Playing catch
31. Rock Climbing
32. Roller Blading
33. Roller Skating
34. Running
35. Skateboarding
36. Skiing
37. Soccer
38. Softball
39. Swimming
40. Tae Kwon Do
41. Tennis
42. Trampoline
43. Treadmill
44. Unicycling
45. Volleyball
46. Walking
47. Weightlifting
48. Wii sports games

My recommendation is to choose one of these activities, most days of the week (4-5 days perhaps). If you go out, have fun, enjoy the activity, it won’t feel like “exercise” … but you’ll be getting fit and healthy in the meantime.

Make the workout the reward.