Thursday, August 9

Kids Junior Olympics Party Games - part 2

Today I'll share more about our Junior Olympics Party we held last week in our backyard.
We had 21 kids – most of them between ages 5 and 11.
We had to start our games with an Olympic torch relay, of course! :-)
We ran around the cul-de-sac, set our torch in it's cauldron and started right off with Track and Field. Kids were paired up for a 3-legged race:
Shot put found 8 kids at a time rolling bocce balls, striving for closest to the golf ball target.

Our littlest ones got to try from up close:
Hurdles was all about the numbers – the colored bars of this lawn game are 1, 2, 3 top down:
Discus was a frisbee toss into concentric circles on the grass. For some of the games, we adjusted for the age differences by having the younger children stand a little closer than the older kids. Similarly we used a ring target for a child's lawn 'dart' game, counting points for the win.
We also had a badminton individual competition – how many vertical hits each child can get in a row.

In gymnastics we competed in a test of balance – standing on one leg for as long as possible:
Into the pool we went to cool off on this blistering hot August afternoon. We started with individuals competing against the clock two at a time, down and back the length of the pool. This should have been  an age-adjusted race, 5-7 competing and the 8-10s competing. We also did kick board races and relays with teams of 4 kids of assorted age and ability.
After each group of events we held a medals ceremony beside the pool, in front of a large U.S. flag.
It was so sweet to see all the kids up on the 'podium' receiving their medals with pride.
I went with simple felt circles and assorted red, white and blue ribbons:
 Of course, with the actual 2012 Olympics going on, I had plenty of tv time to work on a stash of medals. A little fabric glue and you can see the back side with just a little overlap:
I learned so much from this party, we'll have to do it again next summer and it'll be really smooth! Ha! The game ideas are really limitless, so have fun being creative with your events! We don't really get snow here, so I'm not sure we can do a Winter games, but that would be equally fun! See my first post for more about our Junior Olympics Party!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We would love to have you link up to our Strut Your Stuff Saturday at sixsistersstuff.com and share some of your great ideas! We are also hosting a Build Your Blog Conference in Salt Lake City on Feb. 16, 2013. You can find a link on our website or go to buildyourblogconference.com. We hope to hear from you soon! -The Six Sisters

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...