Where Does Being Active Fit in Your Day?

What Really Is a Routine?

So, you wake up most every morning. You brush your teeth. You get dressed. Maybe comb your hair? (Don't want to look like a shag muffin.) You eat something, grab your backpack and somehow get yourself out the door. This is your morning routine we are describing. You do most of these things every day, or at least every school day. They are part of your routines of daily living. You probably do many of them in about the same order without thinking very much about it (you definitely get dressed before you walk out the door). You don't carefully plan it all out the night before: 7:03 brush teeth, 7:07 find socks. For the most part, it just happens because you have done it many times before. That is a routine.

Think about yours: What are three things you do almost every school morning without having to make a special plan for them?

In Contrast, There Is the Planned Activity

Now it is Saturday. No school! That means you do not have your usual weekday routine of getting to school. Side note: we all have different routines for getting there. Some students get driven, some catch the bus, some walk, bike or wheel, and some run when they are late. :) Same end goal, getting to school, but different routines for getting there. Routines are like that. Back to Saturday. You and a friend decide you want to go swimming. That does not just happen. What time will you go? Which pool? How will you get there? What do you need to bring? Who needs to know? A planned activity takes some organizing because it is not simply going to happen as part of your usual day.

What else? Besides swimming, what is something you have planned with friends or family on a weekend?

Organize, Organize, Organize

Think back to something fun you planned over the summer. Maybe you met friends at the park, went swimming, biked somewhere, visited the recreation centre, went hiking with your family or spent an afternoon at the lake. Before it happened, somebody had to organize it. You needed a time. You might have needed a ride. Someone had to decide where you were meeting. You probably needed to bring something. Helmet? Swimsuit? Water? Snacks? Organize, organize, organize. Sounds like a lot of work. It had better be fun. :) This is one reason planned activities are different from the things that simply happen as part of our usual routines. We have to make a place for them in the day.

Remember one: Think of something you planned over the summer. What had to be organized before it could happen?

Where Does a Planned Activity Go?

A planned activity has to fit somewhere in a day that already has other things in it. That is where free time becomes useful. Free time is simply time when nothing else has already been organized for you. Saturday afternoon might be open. There is a place where the swim, bike ride or trip to the park could go. Sometimes we even keep the same place for an activity each week. If you start going swimming every Saturday morning, after a while Saturday swimming might become part of your weekly routine. Something can begin as a planned activity and, when we keep doing it regularly, become a normal part of our week.

What happened? Saturday swimming started as something you had to organize. What would make it become part of your weekly routine?

So What Does Any of This Have to Do With Being Active?

Quite a lot. Look again at the routine of getting to school. One student gets driven to school. Another walks. Another bikes. All three get to school, but physical activity is already part of the morning routine for two of them. The same thing happens throughout the day. Recess is part of the school day. An active break in class might be part of the day. Walking the dog after supper might be part of a home routine. Monday and Wednesday basketball practice might have a regular place in the week. Being active does not always have to be added as something extra. Sometimes it is already part of what we regularly do.

Look for it: Where might physical activity already show up in an ordinary school day without someone having to add a special activity?

And Sometimes We Need to Make Room for It

But our routines do not always give us all the opportunities to be active that we would like. Maybe you love swimming, but going to the pool is not part of your usual week. Maybe you want to bike with friends, go to the park, skate, shoot baskets or spend an afternoon at the recreation centre. Those activities need somewhere to go. This is where planning matters. You find some open time, decide what you want to do and organize what needs to happen so you can actually do it. Sometimes you are finding activity in your routine. Other times you are making room for an activity you want to do. Both are ways that physical activity becomes part of your life.

Two different ways: What is one active thing that is already part of your routine? What is one active thing you enjoy that you usually have to plan?

Building an Active Life

This is where routines, planned activities and your own goals start to come together. Suppose you want to spend more time being active with friends. First, look at your routines. Maybe you already play together at recess or walk home together. Those already help. Then look at what you would like to do that is not happening regularly. Maybe you keep talking about going swimming together but never actually go. That is where a planned activity helps. You do not need to completely reorganize your life. Look for opportunities to make physical activity part of the routines you already have, and when there is something active you want to do that is not part of those routines, make some time and plan it.

Your turn: Think of one way you could be active more often. Could you make it part of something you already do, or would you need to plan a time for it?

G5 AL-3