It was a beautiful day, we had friends over and the big world summer games are around the corner. How could I resist hosting our very own Summer O__ games for kids? Nothing like some friendly competition to get boys riled up! Because this was last minute planning all of our activities and treats were simple and easy. I only had about 30min to prepare it so there was no other option but to go with easy.
Update-7/2016- I recently discovered this fun O___ pack that would go great with these activities. I love it and it’s a great way to add an educational component when viewing the O___ games. You can go HERE to download it and for all the information.
The O___ for Kids: Games, Crafts and Treats
Below I will show you our activities, snacks and ideas that made these summer games easy and enjoyable for the kids. The torch you see pictured above is our Edible Torch .
We started off by decorating our Edible NO BAKE Medals.
A little incentive for the kids, Edible Medals, they knew that at the end they had a yummy treat awaiting. You will need: store bought cookies( we used these chocolate covered round cookies), icing (I made cream cheese icing) and Fruit Loops. Insert a skewer into the end of the cookie so that you can string the ribbon through once the kids are done decorating and it dries. Tie it around their neck and watch it disappear in 10 seconds.
The Challenge
On the chalkboard I put all of the Atheletes names and the sports that they could compete in.
I gathered them and we talked about good sportsmanship. How the winners should respond to the others and how the ones who didn’t win should have a good attitude. We also emphasized that we are doing this to have fun and with practice we can improve if we don’t win. I also briefly shared what the O___ games are and gave them a summary of the each challenge.
Our other incentive for good sportsmanship was our O___ Bracelet. If you look closely above there are bracelets hanging from each atheletes name. I had the beads and everytime they completed a game with a good attitude they received a bead.
Making it adjustable: Make a knot on one end. Then slide the clear bead in then add another knot and slide your colored beads in. Then you make another knot to hold the colored beads in and you slide the other end that doesn’t have a knot through the clear bead and close it in with a knot.
The O____ Sport Challenges
Water Sports, Ring Toss, Javelin, Discus, High Jump, Soccer, Obstacle Course and Gymnastics
Discus: For this we used a Golf Frisbees and the boys took turns throwing it. Note: if you choose to have a couple of them doing it at the same time make sure they have enough space in between. We had a minor frisbee face “punch” as a result of not spacing sufficiently.
Gymnastics- I used a hoola hoop and hung it from a tree. I left it up to them to do their own gymnastics moves, it was quite funny to see how creative they got.
Ring Toss- Again I tried to make all of the set up simple so for this game I used skewers and with a blade I made a circle inside each paper plate.
Soccer- We got double use out of our hoola hoop. We used it as a goal for our kick the ball in the goal challenge (sometimes the goal moved, tee hee).
Javelin- We just used a sword like toy, for them to throw. You could also use large thick skewers.
High Jump– I used chalk to make lots of circles at different distances.
Water Sports: We saved this for last! It was a perfect hot summers day, so to end with this was refreshing. We hung water balloons from the tree and they took turns busting them. Water balloon target practice with a stick. We tried using a frisbee but it wasn’t quite doing the trick.
We never got around to our obstacle course but the plan was to have them ride their bike around obstacles and midway have them jump off their bike crawl through a tunnel (a box) and get back on their bikes to finish. . These 7 challenges took about 1.5 hours with 5 boys between the ages of 4-8 years old.
Our own O___ games fun was a winner with our boys! They loved it and had so much fun being competitive but practicing good sportsmanship. I was so impressed with all of them. At the end they all received an Edible Gold Medal and their O___ Bracelet with beads!
