Kid Olympics

Skip summer camp and bring the Olympics to your children this Summer! Plan several sports and wacky fun for a free (or very frugal) week-long event of lasting memories. Adding your children's friends in the games would make for a bigger event but even one child can be an Olympian who competes against a stop watch for their personal best time or sets a pretend "new world record" time.

Traditional sports in your Kid Olympics could be swimming, track, and gymnastics. A mini-triathlon for your wee ones could be super fun when swimming is following a short bike ride and jog.

A swimming contest would entail having the children swim a few laps in a pool, more or less depending on their skill level. The Butterfly stroke might be a fun variation to include in your Kid Olympics! (Synchronized swimming is fun for the kids to try as well, if the kids are able.) Even consider inexpensive rope taped to the pool edges to make Olympic "lanes" for the contestants to swim in for an authentic feel- and great pictures!

Gymnastics, a personal favorite of mine, can include a "low beam" and floor exercise, and maybe a somersault contest. For toddlers, walking an indoor taped or outdoor chalk-line "beam" may be best. Indoors, a cartwheel competition while staying on a pretend balance beam made of masking tape or painters tape on carpet would make for a challenge. Include a one-minute musical acrobatic dance and judge to see who's best at staying "in the lines" of a designated taped boundary, best facial expression, most cartwheels and the like.

Discount stores have plastic gold medals for the Olympian's awards, or make gold, silver and bronze medals out of paper and ribbon for the children if there are three or more. (For two children, give gold and silver medals and so on.)

Tailor your Olympic competitions to suit your family or participants, using favorite Olympic sports of parents and kids. You may choose to make up a new contest, like blowing bubbles for the longest. Brainstorm with your children to create a Kid Olympics all your own!

By Erin813 from Seffner, FL