Exercise for 10 year old: 8 Easy and Fun Exercises for Kids

8 Easy and Fun Exercises for Kids

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This article was medically reviewed by Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, FAAP, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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Our stories are reviewed by medical professionals to ensure you get the most accurate and useful information about your health and wellness. For more information, visit our medical review board.

Yoga can be a fun way for kids to practice balance, coordination, and mindfulness.

Ariel Skelley/Getty Images

• Kids should exercise for about an hour a day to improve coordination and muscle strength. 
• Some fun exercises for kids include running, jumping, skipping, and bear crawls.  
• Kids should also do muscle-building exercises like supermans, squats, and crab walks. 

Regular exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle for children as it lays the foundation for future healthy habits. It can also decrease the risk of becoming overweight in adulthood or developing type 2 diabetes. 

Targeting certain muscle groups early can also prepare your child for more complex motor skills later on, like dribbling a basketball or riding a bike. Here is how much your child should be exercising based on their age: 

Important: While exercise is important, there is such thing as too much. As a parent, pay close attention to your child to see if they exhibit signs of over-exercising like, loss of interest in an activity, fatigue, depression, or stress fractures.

Those recommendations may seem daunting, but the good news is children can meet them through typical childhood games and imaginative play.  

Here are eight easy and fun exercises for kids and tips to incorporate them into your child’s day. 

1. Running 

Running can improve cardiovascular health in children.

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Running not only helps kids develop healthy hearts, lungs, and coordination, but it can also improve cognitive performance, mental health, and academic performance says Candice Taylor Lucas, MD, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine. 

A 2008 review found that aerobic physical activity, like running, improved academic performance. 

How to do it: Young kids typically enjoy games like tag or freeze that encourage running by chasing each other, says Ryan Ingley AT, an athletic trainer with Nationwide Children’s Hospital Sports Medicine. Older kids might enjoy games that require more strategy like capture the flag, which involves two competing teams trying to capture each other’s flag and bring it back to their own home base. 

2. Jumping 

Jumping helps work leg muscles like the glutes and hamstrings.

Nick David/Getty Images

Jumping is another fundamental skill that builds on bouncing, which children typically are able to do by 18 months, Lucas says. Like running, jumping also helps develop balance and coordination while strengthening leg and core muscles.

A small 2018 study of boys aged 10 to 12, had one group complete a jump rope training program three times a week, while the other completed a regular physical education program without jumping rope. The jump rope group gained more strength and endurance over a 10 week period than the group that did not complete a jump rope program. 

How to do it: According to Lucas, here are some fun ideas to get your child to jump: 

• Engage in pretend activities at home or outside that involve jumping like a frog or kangaroo with your child. 
• Instead of freeze dance, try playing freeze jump. Turn on some music and jump when it’s on and stop when it’s off.
• For older kids, try incorporating jumping into relay races, like a potato sack race where kids stand inside a potato sack or pillowcase and jump to a finish line.

3. Skipping 

Skipping is a build-off of jumping and can be incorporated into relay races.

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Skipping is a more coordinated movement that builds upon running and jumping skills, Lucas says. Skipping also improves balance and coordination as well as timing and proprioception skills, or the ability to sense your body’s position and movements. 

How to do it: Some ways you can encourage your kids to skip include:

• Substitute skipping for running in tag or freeze games.
• Have your children race skipping across a field or your backyard.
• Play freeze skip similar to freeze jump but skip while the music is playing.

4. Bear crawls 

Incorporate bear crawls into a relay race.

Jacquelyn Smith/INSIDER

Bear crawls are full-body movements that help increase strength and coordination, Ingley says. They target the following muscle groups:

• Upper body muscles, including shoulders, chest, and arms.
• Lower body muscles, including quadriceps and hamstrings in the legs. 

You can encourage small children to do bear crawls by tapping into their imaginations, Lucas says. Have your children pretend to be bears, moving around in a forest looking for food or trying to catch another animal.

How to do it: 

1. Start on all fours with both hands and feet on the ground.
2. Keep your arms shoulder-width apart and your hips up in the air.
3. Move forward, starting with your right hand and left foot and then your left hand and right foot. 

5. Crab walks

Try using imaginative play to get your child to do crab walks.

Jacquelyn Smith/INSIDER

Crab walks are another muscle-strengthening exercise that can help improve coordination, Ingley says. Like bear crawls, crab walks target many muscle groups, including:

• Triceps
• Hamstrings
• Shoulders
• Glutes
• Abdominals

“These are great for kids who are sitting all day and for building upper body strength,” Lucas says. “Like bear crawls, these also foster an active play opportunity that leans on a child’s imagination.”

Younger kids might enjoy pretending to be crabs walking along the sand on a beach while older kids might enjoy racing each other while doing crab walks.

How to do it:

1. Start by sitting up with both your knees bent pointing upward and both feet flat on the floor.
2. Place your hands flat on the floor and slightly behind your back.
3. Lift your hips off the floor and walk backward. 

6. Squats 

Teach your kids how to squat and then see who can hold it the longest.

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Squats help improve strength and stability while targeting several lower body muscle groups, including:

• Glutes
• Quadriceps
• Hamstrings
• Calves
• Hip flexors

Latest research: A 2019 analysis found resistance training, like squats, had a positive effect on the development of other motor skills, including sprinting, jumping, and throwing in children ages 5 to 18. 

How to do it: Here are some ideas to encourage squatting for kids:

• For young kids or toddlers, put a toy on the ground in front of them while they are standing. This may encourage them to squat in order to look at it.
• For older kids, make a game out of seeing how high they can jump. 
• For teens, you can make squats more challenging by encouraging them to squat with a backpack of books on their back. 

Important: When doing squats make sure your child keeps their knees over their toes and pushes their hips back behind them. 

7. Yoga 

Encourage your child to join you when practicing yoga certain yoga poses.

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Yoga is a great form of exercise to build strength, flexibility, and promote mindfulness and deep breathing, which can reduce stress, Lucas says.  

A 2015 review found yoga may reduce anxiety in children and adolescents. Other benefits of yoga for kids include:

• Improved focus, memory, and self-esteem
• Improved academic performance
• Less disruptive behavior in school 

How to do it: There are many ways to encourage your child to do yoga, including:

• Online tools, like Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube or Yoga for the Classroom.
• Reading books about yoga that walk kids through different poses, like Sleepy Little Yoga, Good Morning Yoga, or Good Night Yoga.
• If you do yoga yourself, set out another mat while you do your own practice. Toddlers love to imitate adults, so invite yours to join you.

8. Superman 

Pretend you and your child are flying when doing superman.

Jacquelyn Smith/INSIDER

A superman is a muscle-strengthening exercise that works your abdominal and back muscles, Ingley says. You can encourage your child to do a superman by pretending to be superheroes flying through the sky.

How  to do it: 

1. Lay facedown on the ground with legs on the floor and arms stretched out in front, above the head.  
2. Lift your legs and arms off the ground at the same time, engaging your abdominal and back muscles. 

Insider’s takeaway 

Kids and teens need at least an hour of aerobic exercise a day and an hour of muscle-strengthening exercises three times a week. 

You can encourage different types of exercise by incorporating them into imaginative play or games.  

While the exercises listed above are great for kids, finding what they already enjoy and encouraging them to explore their own interests will likely be more successful than trying to develop a specific exercise plan.

“Encouraging free play, outdoor exploration, and involvement in activities, games, or sports are the best ways to get kids physically active,” Ingley says.

Erin Heger

Erin Heger is a freelance journalist located in the Kansas City area. She primarily covers stories related to healthcare policy, maternal mental health, parenting, and personal finance. Her work been featured in The Atlantic, Rewire.News, Refinery29, HuffPost, and more. 

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Physical activity guidelines for children and young people

How much physical activity should children and young people aged 5 to 18 do to keep healthy?

Children and young people need to do 2 types of physical activity each week:

• aerobic exercise
• exercises to strengthen their muscles and bones

Children and young people aged 5 to 18 should:

• aim for an average of at least 60 minutes of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week
• take part in a variety of types and intensities of physical activity across the week to develop movement skills, muscles and bones
• reduce the time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity. Aim to spread activity throughout the day

What counts as moderate activity?

Moderate intensity activities will raise your heart rate, and make you breathe faster and feel warmer.

One way to tell if you’re working at a moderate intensity level is if you can still talk, but not sing.

Children and young people should do a range of different activities across the week.

Examples include:

• walking to school or walking the dog
• playground activities, including jumping, running and catching
• physical education
• sports, like football or tennis
• swimming
• skipping
• dancing
• skateboarding or rollerblading
• cycling

What activities strengthen muscles and bones?

Examples include:

• gymnastics
• football
• jumping
• martial arts
• resistance exercises with exercise bands, weight machines or handheld weights
• sit-ups, press-ups and other similar exercises

Physical activity recommendation for other age groups:

• Physical activity guidelines for children under 5 years
• Physical activity guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64
• Physical activity guidelines for older adults (aged 65 and over)

GOV. UK has infographics on physical activity for children and young people

Page last reviewed: 12 November 2021

Next review due: 12 November 2024

15 best exercises for a school child at home – gymnastics for posture and muscle tone for children 7-10 years old

Natalya Kaptsova

Integral neuroprogramming practitioner, expert psychologist, mother of many children

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Reviewed by experts

All medical content of Colady.ru magazine is written and reviewed by a team of medically trained experts to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in the articles.

We refer only to academic research institutions, WHO, authoritative sources and public domain research.

The information in our articles is NOT medical advice and is NOT a substitute for seeing a specialist.

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Date of writing: November 18, 2019

Reading time: 8 minutes

Some parents consider exercise superfluous (“why – there is physical education at school!”), Others do not have extra 15-20 minutes for children , “because work!”. And only a few mothers and fathers understand the importance of exercise for the child, and specifically get up half an hour early in the morning in order to have time to cheer up with the child and prepare the body for the school / work day with the help of effective exercises for children.

If your kids sleep in class and are constantly shirking their PE lessons, this guide is for you!

Contents of the article:

1. When to perform and how to prepare for gymnastics?
2. 15 best exercises for 7-10 year olds
3. Motivation for junior schoolchildren to perform gymnastics

When is the best time to do exercises for a younger student – how to prepare for gymnastics?

Man by nature must move a lot. No wonder they say that movement is life. The less the child moves, lying all his free time near the TV and sitting at the computer, the more health problems he gets.

Children’s specialists are sounding the alarm and reminding parents that the child’s body must be actively moving at least 10 hours a week, and for younger students this minimum is increased to 3 hours a day. Moreover, it is desirable that this happens in the fresh air.

Naturally, parents have too little time, but still, allocating 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening for exercise is not so difficult.

Video: Gymnastics for primary school children

What does charging do?

• Prevention of obesity.
• Prevention of problems of the cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal system, etc.
• Elimination of nervous tension.
• Return of the body to normal tone.
• Mood boost – a psychological setting for a good day and a charge of vivacity in the morning.
• Full awakening (the child will come to class with a “fresher” head).
• Activation of metabolism.
• Etc.

How to prepare a child for exercise?

Of course, it is difficult to get a child out of bed ahead of time – especially “for some kind of exercise. ” This wonderful habit needs to be instilled gradually.

As you know, it takes about 15-30 days of regularly repeated actions to establish a habit. That is, after 2-3 weeks of such classes, your child will already be drawn to them.

No attitude – nowhere. Therefore, the most important thing in forming this habit is to tune in and find motivation.

In addition, it is important that the exercises for the child change periodically (children at this age get tired of the same type of training too quickly).

And do not forget to praise your child and in every way encourage any physical activity.

Video: Morning exercises. Charging for children

15 best exercises for children 7-10 years old – correct posture and increase muscle tone with a daily set of exercises!

If you don’t have the opportunity to go outside for fresh air, then open the window in the room – training should not take place in a stuffy room.

It is recommended to have breakfast after exercise (exercise on a full stomach is not the best solution), and to make exercise more fun, we turn on groovy invigorating music.

So, to your attention – 15 exercises for younger students

The first 5 exercises are for warming up the muscles. It is absolutely impossible to do complex exercises immediately after sleep.

1. Take a deep breath and rise on your toes. Pull the handles up as high as possible, as if trying to reach the ceiling. We go down to the full stop and exhale. Number of approaches – 10.
2. Tilt your head to the left, return to the starting position for a couple of seconds and then tilt your head to the right . Next, we make circular movements with the head – to the right side, then to the left. Run time – 2 minutes.
3. Now the shoulders and arms. Alternately raise one shoulder, then the other, then both at once. Next, we make swings up with our hands – in turn, then with the left, then with the right hand. Then circular movements with the hands, as when swimming – first breaststroke, then crawl. We try to do the exercises as slowly as possible.
4. We rest our hands on the sides and do inclinations – to the left, to the right, then forward and backward. 5 times – in each direction.
5. Walk in place for 2-3 minutes, raising your knees as high as possible . Next, we jump 5 times on the left leg, then 5 times on the right, then 5 times on both, and then jumps with a turn of 180 degrees.
6. Stretch your arms forward, clasp your fingers and stretch forward – as far as possible . Then, without losing the lock, we lower our hands down and try to reach the floor with our palms. Well, we finish the exercise, trying to reach the ceiling with clasped hands.
7. Performing squats. Conditions: keep the back straight, legs – shoulder-width apart, hands can be clasped behind the head in a lock or pulled forward. The number of repetitions is 10-15.
8. We do push-ups. Boys do push-ups, of course, from the floor, but for girls the task can be simplified – you can do push-ups from a chair or sofa. The number of repetitions is from 3-5.
9. Boat. We lie down on the tummy, stretch our arms forward and slightly up (we lift the bow of the boat), and also legs – we connect together, lift up the “stern of the boat”. We bend the back as hard as possible. The execution time is 2-3 minutes.
10. Bridge. We lie down on the floor (children who can descend onto the bridge from a standing position descend directly from it), rest their feet and palms on the floor and, straightening the arms with legs, bend their back in an arc. The execution time is 2-3 minutes.
11. We sit down on the floor and spread the legs apart. Alternately stretch our hands to the toes of the left foot, then to the toes of the right. It is important to touch the leg with the stomach so that the body lies with the leg – parallel to the floor.
12. Bend the left leg at the knee and lift it up, clap hands under it . Then repeat with the right leg. Next, raise the outstretched left leg as high as possible up (at least 90 degrees relative to the floor) and again clap your hands under it. Repeat for the right leg.
13. Swallow. We spread our arms to the sides, move the left leg back and, slightly tilting the body forward, freeze in the swallow position for 1-2 minutes. It is important that the body at this moment is parallel to the floor. Next, repeat the exercise, changing the leg.
14. Clamp an ordinary ball between the knees, straighten your shoulders, rest your hands on the belt. Now squat down slowly, keeping your back straight and the ball between your knees. The number of repetitions is 10-12.
15. We rest our hands on the floor and “hover” over it in the “push-up” position. And now slowly with the help of the hands “go” to a vertical position. We rest a little in the “ostrich” position and “stomp” with our hands forward to the original position. We go back and forth with our hands 10-12 times.

We finish the exercises with a simple exercise for relaxation: we stretch out “at attention” while inhaling, straining all the muscles – for 5-10 seconds. Then we sharply relax on the command “at ease”, exhaling. We repeat the exercise 3 times.

Motivation for junior schoolchildren to do daily gymnastics at home – useful tips for parents

Even an adult finds it difficult to force himself to do exercises in the morning, let alone children – you need to try hard to accustom a child to this useful ritual. There is no need for motivation here.

Where to look for this motivation, and how to entice a child to exercise so that the child would be happy with it?

• The main rule is to do exercises together! Well, if dad categorically refuses, then mom should definitely participate in this process.
• Turn on upbeat and cheerful music. Exercise in silence is boring even for an adult. Let the child choose the music!
• Looking for an incentive in each case. For example, a beautiful toned figure, to the envy of everyone, can become an incentive for a girl, and a muscle relief that he can be proud of can become an incentive for a boy. No less incentive will be weight loss if the child is overweight.
• We are looking for those who can be imitated. We do not create idols (!), but we are looking for a role model. Naturally, we are looking for him not among bloggers and bloggers with beautiful bodies and emptiness in their heads, but among athletes or heroes of films / films that the child loves.
• Exercise is needed to become stronger. And you need to be strong (strong) to protect your younger brother (sister).
• In addition to the 5 exercises for warming up the muscles, you need to choose another 5-7 exercises for direct charging. No more needed for this age, and the training itself should take no more than 20 minutes (twice a day). But it is important to regularly change the set of exercises so that the child does not get bored! Therefore, immediately make a large list of exercises, from which you will pull out 5-7 new ones for every 2-3 days.
• We talk more often with the child about health : why exercise is so important, what it gives, what happens to the body without physical activity, and so on. We are looking for thematic films and cartoons that we watch, of course, with the child. We often watch films in which young athletes achieve success – often such films become powerful motivators for a child to go into the world of sports.
• Arrange a sports corner for your child in the room . Let him have personal bars and rings, a Swedish machine, a fitball, a horizontal bar, children’s dumbbells and other equipment. Reward each month of training with a trip to a trampoline center, rock climbing or other sports attraction. The best home sports complexes for children
• Use to encourage your child to exercise his own cravings . For example, if a child loves a ball, consider a set of exercises with the ball. He loves uneven bars – do exercises on the children’s sports ground. Etc.

Video: Cheerful exercise for a child

Remember that it is impossible to drive a child to exercise, like hard labor. It is important that he wants to work with you. Therefore, first of all, we demonstrate the importance of charging by our own example.

Children at this age already think and analyze perfectly, and if you constantly lie on the couch, growing your belly, then you simply cannot force your child to study – a personal example works more efficiently than all other methods.

The site Colady. ru thanks you for your attention to the article – we hope that it was useful to you. Please share your feedback and tips with our readers!

Tasks for children aged 9-10

This section of the Razumeikin website contains exercises for children aged 9-10, which will help the child broaden his horizons and serve as an addition to school subjects. When developing a set of tasks for schoolchildren, our specialists tried to make them not only as understandable and exciting as possible, but also really useful in practical terms.

The “Development” block presents interesting tasks for children aged 9-10, which help improve logical and spatial thinking, memory, and attention. All these skills help to simplify the process of assimilation of the school curriculum. Tasks-tests in the “Development” block are built in the form of an interesting online computer game for children 9-10 years old. By doing them, young students develop counting and reading skills and strive to learn something new.

Interesting entertaining tasks for children 9years in the “Education” block will help schoolchildren to consolidate the knowledge they received in primary school. The exercises presented here correspond to the tasks that are encountered in the certification tests. Consistently completing tasks-tests for children aged 9-10, prepared by our specialists, the guys will be able to:

• Prepare for exams in mathematics, Russian, reading, the world around.
• Recall the literary works covered in elementary school.
• Practice solving problems of increased complexity in mathematics and the Russian language.
• Refresh the memory of topics that have been studied within the framework of the subject “World around”.

For most of the tasks-questions for children 9 years old, we have provided a detailed explanation of the solution. It is given to the child if the answer he gave was incorrect or incomplete. The “Science” block includes entertaining children’s games and tasks for 10 years old, coping with which the child learns about chemical elements, structural features of substances, air pressure, refraction of sunlight, learns fascinating facts about our planet, etc. In most exercises provided introductory information, which we have presented in an accessible form. After a preliminary explanation of the task-game to children 9-10 years is proposed to start its implementation.

A few words about the submission of material

In order for little students to learn information during the lessons, for each exercise for children 10 years old, the specialists of the Razumeikin website prepared thematic pictures and voiced text. We are convinced that this approach will allow you to learn the material better. For many interesting test games for children 10 years old, we have prepared educational videos that will help you cope with online tasks.

How are results evaluated?

Coping with test tasks, children of 10 years old receive online awards: cups, medals, etc. They help to increase the student’s interest in independent studies. Most of the exercises are graded based on the attempt the student made to give the correct answer.