I had this blog post all planned out as soon as I heard about Walk to School Week (21-25 May 2012). Little Miss C has recently started walking both to and from nursery on her own rather than being pushed in the buggy. Half a mile each way and she loves being able to point everything out to us and tell us about what she’s going to do at nursery, or what she’s done that day. It’s a lovely part of the day for both of us, but the slight spanner in the works this week is that she’s got chicken pox so no nursery and hence no walk to nursery. Tuesday is usually nursery day so it seemed right to write about it on the day we usually do our “walk to school”.
That’s absolutely no excuse for the rest of you though! Walking to school is a great way of spending time with your children and also getting some exercise. Looking out of the window right now the sun even seems to be coming out in support, but as long as you’re dressed appropriately even the British weather shouldn’t get in the way.
Last year over 1 million children from 4000 schools ditched the school run to walk to school instead. Will you be one of the number this week, or even better are you someone who already walks to school regularly? A big pat on the back to those of you that are, but to the others have a think about it – I realise that sometimes getting to work may prevent this in a morning, but please try to make the time to spend those precious moments with your children by walking with them to school (and home again). Not only will you get exercise and fresh air, but you should be making a saving in fuel costs too – cars are never at their most efficient when stuck in traffic stop-start on the school run!
Walk to School Week is taking part as part of the Living Streets’ Great British Walking Challenge and there are lots of fun activities taking place as part of the week, including an opportunity for one class of junior school children to each win a pair of Start-rite shoes – find out more here.
Disclaimer: No payment has been received for this post – I simply think more people should be walking instead of getting in their cars!
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