ESPN PLAY YOUR WAY

ESPN Play Your Way is a youth fitness program designed to encourage kids, ages 7-12, to get fit and remain physically active. To do what they do best: be creative and have fun. We want kids to take charge of their own health and fitness. It’s an outreach program that inspires them to be physically active by making up their own physically active games and writing their own rules.

ESPN Play Your Way is a unique program. It’s whatever kids want it to be. It’s all up to them and wherever their imagination takes them. Anything can be fun. We just kind of lead them in the right direction.

Remember your inner child?

You know, the one that loved to run, jump and engage in all types of
frolicking, high jinks and horseplay? Maybe even participated in the
occasional shenanigan, antic or tomfoolery? Any chance you’re still
on speaking terms? Any of this ring a bell?

Well, let’s hope so – we need that inner child now more than ever.
Because, believe it or not, there are kids out there who are in danger
of never even knowing theirs. Hard to imagine, right? But with
physical education programs being cut from schools and obesity rates
tripling over the last 20 years, the definition of “play” has changed
significantly.

This is why DisneyHand and Team ESPN have joined forces to
establish ESPN Play Your Way. To get kids active and inspire them to
explore their imaginations before their inner child becomes inner.

?

What is ESPN Play Your Way?

The first month of scheduled activities. Club or no club. It’s
easy to transform everyday places at home, community
centers or parks into places to play. Now all they need is
stuff to play with!

ESPN Play Your Way gear

Unexpected and found objects are perfect for ESPN Play
Your Way gear. Here are some items for starters – kids are
sure to have their own favorites.

> Tires > Water > Buckets

> Bandanas > Balloons > Chalk

> Cones > Beanbags > Boxes

> Traditional sports equipment – bats, balls, skates, bases
and safety equipment

How ESPN Play Your Way gear can be used:

> Bandanas can serve as flags or uniforms.

> Chalk can mark boundaries, goals and lines.

> Buckets, well, that’s pretty obvious.

> Plastic gallon containers filled with water can be used as
weights in an outdoor water relay race.

> Tires can be used in obstacle courses and as targets for
tossing games.

Our last suggestion. We promise.

An obstacle course: inside or outdoors, you can challenge
the kids to create an obstacle course that provides a
challenging platform for coming up with new games.

For example:

> On a rainy day, set up an indoor obstacle course using
chairs as obstacles and big plastic cups for cones.

> Outdoor obstacle courses can be created using everyday
items, too. For example, use a garden hose to set up a
waterfall that kids have to climb over or under – without
getting wet.

> Don’t have a lot of props? Create a course that relies
simply on exercise and a timer. Place signs around the
room indicating different stations in the course where a kid
would be required to do a physical activity, like dancing in
place, sit-ups or push-ups, for a set amount of time.

Click on the link at the bottom of this page to find out what

this site is all about.