September is Family Fitness Month

Sep­tem­ber is Fam­i­ly Fit­ness Month, and a great time to get active with your fam­i­ly. Below are cre­ative ways to trans­form the game of tag, and get active while hav­ing fun!

Bandaid TagIn this ver­sion of the clas­sic game, all play­ers can tag and be tagged. Once a per­son is tagged, he or she must put one hand on the spot they were touched to make a bandaid. Tagged again? Make a sec­ond bandaid with the oth­er hand and con­tin­ue to run. If a play­er is tagged for the third time, they must vis­it the ​“hos­pi­tal” – a des­ig­nat­ed spot out­side of the bound­aries – and com­plete ten jump­ing jacks to heal and rejoin the game.Hot Dog TagThis deli­cious devi­a­tion from the clas­sic starts with one per­son des­ig­nat­ed as ​“it”. When a play­er is tagged, he or she must lay flat on the floor with hands by their side and legs togeth­er, as if they were a hot dog. To get back into the game, two free play­ers need to lie on either side of the ​“hot dog” to form the buns. The per­son who is ​“it” can­not tag any of the three play­ers com­plet­ing the hot dog, as they are allowed to join back in.Ani­mal TagTo pre­pare for this zany zoo game, mark four dif­fer­ent areas as ​“cages” and decide on one per­son to be ​“it” (the ​“zookeep­er”). Divide the remain­ing play­ers into four groups and des­ig­nate one per­son to play the part of the ​“mon­key” – the mis­chie­vous play­er whose role it is to free the oth­ers from the cages. Each group choos­es an ani­mal and a move­ment for the game, i.e. kan­ga­roos can hop, chee­tahs can run, hors­es can gal­lop, etc. To begin, the ani­mals are set free to move around, but if tagged must return to their respec­tive cage. While the zookeep­er is try­ing to lock up all the ani­mals, the mon­key is let­ting every­one loose!