By Molly Taylor
SOUTH Australia’s six-day COVID-19 Stay at Home order will end early at 12.01am Sunday but the remainder of lockdown doesn’t have to mean forgoing all fun and fitness.
Limestone Coast residents have headed online to share their plans, tips and photos with family and friends as the community unites during adversity.
CRAFTY WAYS TO PASS TIME
MOUNT Gambier resident Anna Mitchell said after Thursday – day one of lockdown – her family had found plenty of creative things to do to keep busy.
“My kids never get bored with exquisite corpse drawings, where you take turns in drawing the head/body/feet without seeing what the previous person has drawn,” Ms Mitchell said, who also operates Relish Art Room – a child-focused art business.
“If you have a range of abilities in your household – even better as this will ensure a very random, wacky result.
“Blind contour portraits, where you take turns drawing each other without looking at your paper and keep your eyes on the subject, are also guaranteed giggle.”
Ms Mitchell said the stay at home conditions were also a chance to sort art materials and designate a room to rearrange and get messy in.
“Grab the spare boxes and tubs from the recycling and anything else you can find,” she said.
“Give your kids a whole day, or more, to go crazy with it before they help you to pack it up, sort it and organise it. Make sure they agree with you on this beforehand.”
Ms Mitchell said making the creative time reasonably unstructured worked better for children as they let their own crafty imagination takeover.
“In our house, at the moment, it’s costumes and wands from Harry Potter and armour and weapons from Percy Jackson,” she said.
“For older kids who are too cool for making with boxes, challenge them to construct a marble run.
“Make these from random boxes, tubes, toilet rolls, popsticks and stick it all to a large board, or a wall if it’s not precious. Make different tracks or see how long you can keep the marble up.
“There are tons of challenges you can add to this like tunnels, levers, catapults and more.”
Ms Mitchell also encouraged people to go outside if they could and go on a treasure hunt.
“Make a diorama out of an old shoebox, a mini world, garden or home, for some of their smaller toys to live in,” she said.
“Create a collage of a face using leaves and flowers. Use glue to make mini creatures out of gumnuts, sticks, leaves.
“Make some magic potions using flowers, flower petals and mint from the garden, foamy soap and some liquid watercolours or food colouring, glitter and anything else that will add some fragrance, fizz or sparkle.
“Kids have great imaginations, let them use it. Let kids be bored. If they have paper and pens and some junk from around the house they can find something to do.”
NEED TO STAY ACTIVE? NO SWEAT
LISA Fyfe is used to delivering workouts in her F45 Mount Gambier and Renmark gyms but said the current evolving COVID-19 climate meant it was all about thinking outside the box if people were wanting to move their bodies.
“Obviously, it is a bit more difficult at the moment, so you have to be a bit proactive in what you’re doing,” Ms Fyfe said, with the gym owner able to open her businesses from Sunday.
“Surprisingly, we learnt from the last lockdown there are so many things you can use from home as a substitution for equipment.”
“For me, I have a bit of equipment at home, but for the most part I was able to use my driveway, I have a step outside which I can jump and step up onto and there are so many body weight exercises people can do.”
Ms Fyfe believes it is important to exercise daily, but urged people to not put themselves under too much pressure to continue regular routine.
“I think it is important to move your body, but if you are a regular gym goer who does regular high intensity workouts, you are not expected to do that everyday at home,” she said.
“I do think it is important for people’s mental wellbeing, because I know if I don’t train for a bit your attitude can change.
“It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, or the best thing you have ever done, but I do think it is important to move your body.”
Ms Fyfe said the lockdown period could be an ideal time for people to focus on recovery and take a break.
“Things like foam rolling and tennis ball through your glutes, because a lot of the time we don’t spend enough time on it,” she said.
Ms Fyfe urged people to take care if they planned on increasing their gardening or odd-job work around the house and allow their bodies to adjust to the change in demand.
“But any exercise gets your happy and positive endorphins going and it is important to remember there are going to be long days at home.”
Individuals or people living in the same household can now leave their property for exercise under changes announced by South Australian authorities midday Friday.
Share your lockdown plans, tips or photos via The Border Watch Facebook page or email them to editorial@tbwtoday.com.au.
