I have my favorites for math, English, history, and science. But, when it comes to PE, every year is different. We like to try different things, but most importantly we like to be active and continue to improve our health each day. I want my kids to be healthy and have fun in the process. GoTrybe has a similar goal and we enjoyed using their tools this past month.
Product: Go Trybe online membership
Details: An online fitness membership for kids to use on their own or with their class to encourage them to get active and take a more hands-on interest in their own physical fitness.
Price: $19.95 for an annual membership (regularly $39.95)
What we loved . . .
- Quick to figure out. Login is easy, they even have a free trial to check it out before you buy. As soon as you are in you can click around, create your avatar, plan a workout, or listen to the daily messages.
- Not just exercise. While GoTrybe’s main focus is exercise, they offer incentives to improve your health in many other areas as well. Each day the member can earn points for viewing quick videos or reading quick tidbits about nutrition, motivation, and wellness. These generally offer tips and advice on how to stick with your exercise plans, how to pack the most nutrition in your meals, and how to set and stick with goals to improve your health. They use the points to dress their avatar and buy various items.
- Lots of variety and choose your own. I really enjoyed the way they made the workouts available. They are not just premade videos that you pick from and follow along with only a few to choose from. You create your own workout by pulling from a pool of exercise videos most about 3-5 minutes in length. Each workout must have a warm up, three cardio sets, a strength one, and then a flexibility video. There are lots to choose from and my kids made many videos that we used on different days. No two were alike.
- Kids exercise along, too. Each video is led by an adult, but kids play an important part in the group as well. You can even be in a video if you get in touch with them and are willing to drive to their studios in Tennessee. 😉
- Geared to a variety of ages. You choose your age group when signing in and the videos that you have will vary based on your age at sign in. They have targeted them, and we enjoyed the older group although it was definitely challenging for my little ones that were following along with us. They all still got a great bit of exercise.
Some considerations . . .
- Modesty. My only real beef with GoTrybe is their choice of clothing and body stance for the older girl avatar, in particular. This is often a problem for me when I consider products that focus on physical fitness. Presumably they want to give you a visual that is physically fit, but it often ends up somewhere between questionable and inappropriate in the modesty department. I would have preferred a more neutral stance and more feminine clothing, but obviously they can’t please everyone, so in this area I fell into the part of everyone that they didn’t please.
- Workouts seemed to lack a cool down. We really enjoyed the workouts that we put together and each of my kids took a turn putting one on for us. However, we found that they needed a little more transition from the heart pumping cardio to the muscle building strength clips. We would just pause and walk around the room a few times while our heart rate relaxed a bit.
- Nutrition information might not mesh with your slant. Each day the kids have an opportunity to hear a quick little nutrition tip and take a one question quiz on their comprehension. This was an easy way to earn points and my kids learned something in the process. However, there are a variety of approaches to healthy eating in our society today (whole foods, vegan, Nourishing Traditions, etc.) and again they cannot please everybody. For the most part they did a good job of remaining general (eat lots of fresh, whole foods), but if this is an area that you feel strongly about in your home you might want to use these as discussion starters rather than lessons for your kids to swallow.
- Offers forum and chat features. Social media will always open the door to inappropriate conversation. Just be careful who your kids friend, or have them avoid that part of the program all together. They will not miss out on anything if they don’t get all the shoutouts like, “Make an avatar” ” r u a boy or girl?” etc. Really meaningful stuff right there. 😉
GoTrybe set out to create a motivational site for kids to get fit, to realize the importance of diet and exercise in our society that continues to struggle with obesity and weight related medical issues. I think they did a good job of making this kid-friendly and interactive. This web based program gets you out of your chair and improving your health from the first day you log in. Definitely worth the less than $20 to enable your kids to plan your PE for you.
For more TOS Crew reviews on this product, check out the TOS Crew blog.
Disclaimer: This product was provided to me free of charge through Go Trybe as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.