Activity advent calendar

The lead-up to Christmas can be a challenging time for people living with Prader-Willi syndrome and their families. We've developed a list of suggested advent calendar activities which are appropriate for children aged 4 - 12 and encourage physical activity. We suggest tailoring the activities for your child, including increasing the number of minutes of activities as appropriate. This guide on exercise and physical activity for children with Prader-Willi syndrome may be helpful (opens as PDF): 
https://www.som.uq.edu.au/media/188825/Prader%20Willi%20book%20web.pdf

Suggested activities for your advent calendar:

  1. Draw something you hope to get for Christmas
  2. Santa loves red and green. How many red and green things can you count in your bedroom?
  3. Do something kind for somebody else
  4. Make a Christmas card for your favourite person
  5. Do a happy dance
  6. Do five jumps for joy!
  7. Sing a Christmas carol
  8. Take a special family photo
  9. Read a Christmas book
  10. Say one nice thing about every person in your family
  11. Do ten jumps for joy!
  12. Try to say all of the names of Santa's reindeer
  13. Draw a picture of your favourite Christmas memory
  14. Play musical statues using a Christmas song
  15. Make a Christmas video
  16. Dance to a Christmas carol
  17. Draw a picture of you for Santa
  18. Santa has to run really fast to deliver all the presents. Run as fast as you can for two minutes
  19. Count how many houses on your street have Christmas lights
  20. Do tiny elf steps for two minutes
  21. Count how many houses on your street have Christmas trees in their front yard
  22. Watch a Christmas movie
  23. Go ourstide and look at the stars
  24. Make a sign for Santa so he knows where to find you.

Our thanks go to volunteers Lyndsey Cullen and Melanie Carew for their efforts developing this calendar. Lyndsey is a qualified primary school teacher with an interest in encouraging physical activity in school aged children. Melanie is the volunteer director of science communication for the Prader-Willi Research Foundation of Australia. 

You can download and print a copy of this post at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-cuqbljf-r6WmtEZnJmdVZ4Zm8/view?usp=sharing