BOOST YOUR CHILD’S COGNITIVE SKILLS WITH ORIGAMI
IMPROVE HAND-EYE COORDINATION. Origami also helps younger children better understand spatial concepts such as measurements, shapes, and directions. Studies show that origami helps children improve their dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and spatial reasoning skills. ENCOURAGE A MATHEMATIC MINDSET. The shapes and measuring involved in origami are also an incredible way to implement geometric concepts, terms, and formulas. For older kids, you can make origami a geometry lesson! Use different geometric formulas and apply them to various paper shapes. This will help students better visualize and understand these mathematical concepts.
If you’re looking for a family activity requiring minimal supplies and effort, origami should be next on your to-do list! Origami might seem too challenging or even not stimulating enough for children, but there are plenty of accessible and delightful shapes to keep your kids endlessly entertained. Plus, they won’t be able to stop themselves from filling your home with paper swans, dragons, and more! Not only is origami a simple activity that just requires paper, but it also offers a variety of benefits to children and adults alike. Discover how origami can boost your family’s brains and the perfect way to start folding!
PRACTICE PATIENCE AND MINDFULNESS. No running, jumping, or yelling involved. Children can partake in a soothing activity requiring their undivided attention when practicing origami. Origami is even considered a form of focused attention meditation , which involves concentrating on a single object to induce a relaxing state. Calmly focusing on folding a piece of paper into a unique shape requires you to be present in the moment and can be a fantastic way to introduce mindfulness to your family.
GET STARTED. There are endless resources online or at your local library to create age-appropriate origami activities. While you can purchase special origami paper, you can also use standard paper and scissors to cut sheets into the proper size. Fill your table with a rainbow assortment of colored papers and let your kids pick the origami shape of their choice. Before you know it, origami rabbits and birds will be lining your shelves!
Are You a Weekend Warrior? HERE’S HOW TO AVOID INJURY Most of us are so busy that it becomes almost impossible to find time for exercise. You wake up bright and early to eat breakfast and spend the next 8–10 hours at work before picking the kids up from school, taking them to their extracurricular activities, and making dinner. You’re utterly exhausted by the time you call it a day and can’t imagine squeezing a quick workout into your busy schedule. Thus, you wait for the weekend when there are a few extra free hours in your day for quality exercise. If this describes your routine, you’re known as a weekend warrior — and, unfortunately, this practice might not be as beneficial as you’d hope. While exercise is essential to your physical health, strenuous exercise one to two times per week can actually be incredibly stressful for your body and quickly lead to injury. Many injuries that weekend warriors experience prevent them from continuing their exercise habits. For example, if running is your preferred workout, running too fast for an extended period can cause shin splints, muscle strains, and tendinitis, or you could simply misplace a foot and suffer a limb sprain.
schedule to add another gym session or two, but if not, there are other strategies you can implement. Start by creating goals to determine exactly what you hope to accomplish. From there, cut down on your intensity and develop a solid warmup and cooldown to accompany your workout. It’s not the end of the world if you can only exercise once or twice a week, but be sure you don’t push yourself too hard. Pay attention to your body, and you should be able to get an exemplary workout without risking an injury.
Now, this doesn’t mean you must give up on exercise if the weekend is the only time you can make it to the gym. Ideally, you would find time in your
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