Primary wellbeing

My Journey resources for getting active

Spring into Action

My Journey Hampshire is promoting the Spring into Action Toolkit to inspire families to choose active travel. The toolkit will suggest a fun activity to try each day from Monday 26th February to Sunday 3rd March 2024.

Visit the Spring into Action page for more information.

 

 

Wellbeing activity fliers

It's really important to continue to enjoy the outdoors.

Download our Primary wellbeing flier which gives lots of suggestions of activities you can try out and other sources of information for you to consider. 

You can also colour in our "Keeping active on the trail of rainbows" flier and put outside your home. See how many rainbows you can spot during your exercise.

 

Children's Mental Health Week

For information on Place2Be's Children's Mental Health Week, which takes place every February, please visit their website. 

 

Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week happens every year, and it's the biggest opportunity for the whole of the UK to come together to focus on getting good mental health. The week aims to tackle stigma and help people understand and prioritise their and others' mental health. Why not enjoy our MHAW 2020 "kindness"-themed original film production created by our fantastic friends at Histrionics?:

 

It is themed around kindness, mental health and exercise for wellbeing, all woven together ,using brilliantly humorous storytelling magic, into the true tale of an English cyclist, James Moore, who was brought up in France in the 19th century.

Supported by the kind acts and generosity of his blacksmith neighbours and friends in the circus, Moore trained for and then won the world's first ever cycle road race in 1869 from Paris to Rouen.

As well as a continued successful career in cycling, Moore also performed many acts of kindness himself, including being an interpreter for his English family and running errands on his vélocipède (boneshaker) bicycle.

We hope you enjoy it and can share the film widely within your school communities. Please see our film page for other active travel film fun.

 

Ideas for indoor and outdoor activity, learning and fun

 

Being Active

Whether at home or whilst out, try Sport England kids workouts and perhaps set up an inter-family challenge? Or try PE with The Body Coach.

This Girl Can have also come up with some great Disney "dance-alongs" for kids and Energise Me have more fun workout ideas for every age.

Try out Brightkidz fun blog ideas on keeping busy during lockdown or the NHS's Change4Life page which has loads of great ideas including lots of 10-minute shake ups.

Sustrans have created a fun drawing challenge all about drawing objects used whilst walking, cycling or scooting - but with a challenging twist!

 

Planning your walk

Planning your walk? Search out local maps, use the My Journey planning tool, OpenStreetMap or another mapping website and plan a circular route you've not tried before. You could try to plot out a Golden Mile route like at school - if you find a good local trail, why not share it with other local families? Or just do one around the garden if you have one? Take photos along the way and then map out your journey, noting any points of interest and fun had along the way.

There are some great ideas for planning a journey to a new school, including inspiring and funny Histrionics films, on our Transition Time pages. These are aimed at children going into Years R, 3 and 7.

 

Things to do while you're out walking

There's a fun scavenger hunts on our films page for your to try out and an urban scavenger hunt spotter sheet from the My Journey team for you to try out too.

Why not learn some scooting skills whilst you're out and about using our scooting toolkit or check out our 'Exercise your Wheels' cycling page for bike-specific inspiration and ideas and thoughts on Safe Cycling during the pandemic.

Sustrans has created this 'Walking Bingo' resource to help you make the most of your walks out and about; think about road safety; and identify potential improvements that could be made to support active travel in your local area. 

Our walking partner Living Streets are doing weekly activity ideas. Check out their Walking from Home pages. There are also a couple of great #try20 Walk This May idea sheets to download in celebration of National Walking Month in May. Don't forget to visit their useful Walking the Right Way page for social distancing advice during the pandemic.

For more ideas on becoming a pavement botanist or learning about the nature around you, check out the following great websites:

• Woodland Trust's Spotter Sheets, Scavenger Hunts and Making a Nature Trail
• Bird Aware Solent's lockdown learning
• RSPB's Wild Challenge, facts about nature and other resources on TES
• Twinkl's health and wellbeing outdoor fun
• RHS campaign for school gardening
• Imperial College London's OPAL: Citizen science for everyone campaign
• The Wildlife Trust's looking after yourself and nature
• The New Forest National Park activities, worksheets and games
• South Downs National Park learning zone

 

Bring the outdoors indoors

Try the World Wildlife Fund's Wild Classroom daily lesson plans or outdoor learning activities and the Woodland Trust's ideas and isolation activities. There's lots to learn about leaves - and here's another leafy idea! Here are some gardening ideas and gardening activities. There's rewilding activities too.

You could write some letters or make pictures for local people in isolation or a care home and drop them off as you pass. They will be delighted to know you are thinking about them. Don't forget to spot as many rainbows as you can!

 

Getting crafty at home

Why not watch this great BBC film on making a rainbow to display in your window? You can then start spotting others when out exercising locally. Here's our My Journey rainbow for you to use as a template if you like. You could even leave a nice message on it for your friends or the NHS and other people working on the front line.

Also, see the Woodland Trust's Wildlife Garden fact sheets and Friends of the Earth's Look after the Bees.

Teaching children at home?

Why not start off your home-school lessons by jumping around to a Super Movers curriculum-linked film from the BBC? There's lots of active learning ideas including maths, science, English and PHSE ... as well as some which are "just for fun" of course!

Need some new books? Hampshire Libraries have launched a list of books to lead you to wellbeing in nature. In particular, A Breath of Fresh Air by Rebecca Frank looks of interest. There are some specific mental health reads for children too.

There's also an information book on coronavirus illustrated by Axel Scheffler and 'Dave the Dog is worried about coronavirus', an on-line book written by a Southampton intensive care nurse to help reduce anxiety in children caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

The Susie the Childminder books are a great on-line reading resource linked to PHSE. Some are about active travel, there's a new one on the pandemic and some also have classroom activities linked to them.

Our KS1 and KS2 air quality books are available online, along with our other air quality resources and a new "Clean Air at Home" page to inspire you, with tips on how to make the air you breathe in your home as clean as possible.

If you prefer films, why not follow our friends at Histrionics Entertainment on YouTube and encourage your kids to brush up on their active history?

 

Air Your Views

Air Your Views 2020 was sadly cancelled but why not make your own film on air pollution with your family? Here's a BBC Programme to give you inspiration and some Into Film Activities and an Into Film Director's Mood Board to help you on your way. There's a great example of a short film on air pollution on BBC's Newsround website. 

 

We will keep adding to this page so pop back and visit us again!