Homemade Balance Beam Indoor Activity

Hone your kid's gymnastics skills in the comfort of your living room.

Submitted by
Sonam Adinolf

Little Miss Mary Lou Retton using your couch as a trampoline and the chandelier as uneven bars? Avoid a tumbling disaster and let her sharpen her balancing skills on her very own balance beam with this fun indoor activity.

Books:
Five phone books or encyclopedias (remember those?) will work for younger kids. The Harry Potter series, containers, bins or even a bunch of 28-ounce cans will work for older kids.
A gymnast:
Your kid
A video camera:
Optional, but do you really want to miss capturing the start of your kid's road to greatness?

Make a "balance beam" by getting your kid to line up the phone books or cans in a straight line on the floor. She can make a straight beam, like in the Olympics, or she can get crazy and make a zigzag beam.
Warm up your gymnast. Lead her in a few stretches to limber up her muscles. (Get in a few crunches while you're at it. Who needs that gym membership anyway?)
Introduce her performance and let her start walking the beam, one foot in front of the other.
For an especially astute gymnast, you can add a few tricks: a pirouette, a jump or a one-legged stance. Don't forget the big dismount!
Get out the video camera and capture her acrobatics for eternity—a balance beam performance video will make for great entertainment at her graduation party.
As she gets better, consider using smaller books or cans to make a thinner beam. Try lining up all those old pregnancy and baby books or, when she's really good, use that boxful of chick lit you've been collecting since college!