Review of Just Dance Kids for Wii : Great Gift of Indoor Exercise for Young Children

Are you looking for a fun way to exercise with your children inside when the conditions are not favorable outside? I found myself in that situation and had to find a remedy for the lack of exercise.

During my maternity leave one winter, my toddler and I had some rough times with cabin-fever. For weeks I couldn’t risk going out in the cold weather or in the germ-infested public with him and his newborn sister. At the same time, we were somewhat bored with our everyday indoor activities and I was worried we weren’t getting enough exercise.

We needed something that was affordable and easy to manage at home. I just became a full-time stay-at-home mom, so spending too much money was out of the question. I had the Wii Fit already from a previous weight loss adventure, but my son, just a toddler, didn't register on the board because he wasn'y heavy enough. That frustrated him, so I needed to find another solution.

On one of my rare child-free mommy escapes (they're rare, aren't they?), I headed to the local toy store where they were offering a deal involving EA Sports Active 2 (I wanted something that would help me lose the pregnancy weight) and a variety of kids’ games for the Wii gaming system.

For the kids’ game part of the deal, I chose Just Dance Kids, which seemed like a pretty active game. I had researched this all online, and both items had great reviews at the time, so I thought it’d be a good deal—exercise for Mommy and exercise for kids.

I was really impressed with the game. It has a variety of songs for younger and older children and some challenging dance moves that even this adult had quite a fun time mastering. For my toddler, nothing could be more fun and easy to do. He could dance around with the Wii remote in his own style, not worrying whether or not he was the high scorer, and certainly get plenty of exercise (trust me—it made me sweat!). And unless you can read, there is no audible announcement of winner or loser, so he just wants to keep dancing.

The dances, led by real kids, range in difficulty from easy to challenging. The music is a variety of well known tunes, about 50 of them, like ABC by the Jackson 5, Kung Fu Fighting, YMCA, Old MacDonald, Naturally, Happy Birthday, Mmm Bop, and Here We Go Again. You can set the game to play random songs or you can choose songs from the levels, which range in difficulty from young children to older kids.

Even though this version of the Just Dance game would not necessarily be fun for teenagers, it was still fun to play with young kids as a family. It will take up to four Wii remotes, but we have had so much fun with it that we dance along whether or not we are holding a remote!

Here's the long story short:

1. Just Dance for Kids for the Wii

2. Wii System and Wii remotes necessary

3. Fun, indoor exercise for young and old

4. Chases away cabin fever blues

5. Lots of smiles

©ThePracticalMommy