My son came home from school yesterday all full of excitement about the Olympics. Little did he know that I had been planning a few things for us to do at home to prepare for the big event.  Here are a few of the things we have to done in anticipation of the big day.

Olympic Torch

We made our own torches and after they were complete, we headed out of our apartment, torch in hand and made the rounds to a few of our favorite nearby spots. We got tons of smiles from people as they walked by and the few shop owners we visited, loved not only the torch, but my son’s enthusiastic chant, “Olympic Torch! Olympic Torch!”

Here is our torch: 

Materials:

• gold posterboard from a craft or paper shop
• red cellophane (tissue paper would work too)
• a popsicle stick, old pencil or broken chopstick
• tape
• hot glue gun

Mama’s Directions:

• Heat up your hot glue gun.
• Roll the gold posterboard the long way until you have the shape you like. Hot glue it together.
• Insert a circular piece of paper with a hole in the middle inside the top of the tube. Adhere it with hot glue.This will hold the flame in place.
• Cut two large squares from the cellophane or tissue.  Lay them flat at different angles.

• Gather the large squares around the popsicle stick and tape the bottom so the cellophane stays in place around the stick.
• Insert the flame into the hole of the circular paper inside the top of the tube.  Secure with hot glue if desired.
• Done!

Olympic Rings (8 Different Ways)

We were going to paint the Olympic rings with paper and paint, but once we started with one idea, more came to mind and were done with them all before we knew it.  Here is what we came up with.

For the first 3 ideas, you will need a palate of paint with the colors red, blue, yellow, black and green.

Dixie Cup Rings:  Dip the rims of 5 different dixie cups in the paint and press them onto the paper to create the Olympic Rings.

Plastic Bowl Rings: Follow the same directions as above, but use a plastic bowl with a wide rim to make  the rings. The texture on the rims gives the rings a different sort of look than the dixie cups.

Coloring Page Rings: My son really wanted to paint a “stencil” of the rings, so I printed one out and he painted it. My youngest did it as well.  You can see the difference yourself.

     

m&m Rings:  We did m&m Olympic Rings two different ways.

   

Reinforcement Sticker Rings:  We did this two different ways as well.

    

Lego Rings: 2 ways as well

     

Olympic Event Cards

I found these cool images on the web (for free). I messed with them a bit, made them all the same size, printed them out and made them into  2 sets of cards.  I have a whole bunch of ideas of things we are going to do with them.

                     

• First, see how many of the sports we can name
• Play Olympic sports Memory and Go Fish
• Do a variety of sorts–like/don’t like, tried/haven’t tried, water/land, with equipment/without, ball sport/no ball sport, outdoor/indoor and more!
• Choose 4 favorites that we will be sure to seek out and watch

Gold Medal Tally

Although we are currently living in Australia, we are Americans at heart. So, we will be keeping a tally of the gold medals won by American athletes.

A few Olympic resources:

• Cool Olympic sports images
• Time for Kids mini-site: 2012 London Olympics
• 2012 London Olympics Homepage 

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