Do you want to know how to how to turn your garden into the Olympic games?
The Olympics may be taking place almost 6,000 miles away in Tokyo this year, but that doesn’t mean that the spirit of the games can’t be felt back home. You might be watching the incredible athletes on your TV screen with your kids and feel inspired to become Olympians yourselves.
Well, the good news is, you can, when you bring the Olympics to your back garden and create your own sporting games. You can also take inspiration from the nursery chain Kiddi Caru, for example, who have been encouraging kids to get playing on their bikes outside and to get involved in the Olympic action. Plus, it turns out that you don’t actually need much equipment to get started.
With a bit of imagination and some team spirit, you and your kids can get active and celebrate this prestigious event. So, to help to inspire you, here’s some tips on how you can turn your humble garden into the Olympic games.
Gymnastics
It turns out that you don’t need equipment to recreate every Olympic sport and your little ones could have lots of fun creating a gymnastics routine! Why not set up an area in the garden where they will have plenty of room to dance and jump about.
You could set up some chairs so that yourself and other family members can act as judges and let them perform for you. To make the event that little bit more official, your kids could even make some score cards for you to hold up to truly ignite their competitive spirit.
Running races
If you’re lucky enough to have a good amount of space in your garden, then you could hold some running races outside. This is an exciting event for your kids to take part in, and if there’s enough people wanting to take part, you could also hold a relay race, to encourage teamwork.
For the relay, you’ll need some form of baton to pass to one another, and you could encourage your kids to get crafty by allowing them to decorate a water bottle with their team colours. Set up a starting line and a finish line, and get one of the adults to act as a judge, so that there’s no confusion over who’s won the race.
Discus
For this one, you’ll need a frisbee, but you can always substitute this for a plastic plate if you don’t have one to hand. You might need a bit of space for this one (depending on how far you can throw), but the aim of this event is to see who can throw the discus the furthest. You’ll need someone to record the distances and place markers where the frisbee lands. In order to make the game last longer, you can allow everyone to take three attempts and use their best throw as their final distance.
Awards ceremony
What would the Olympics be without a podium and those impressive medals? The award ceremony will give your child the opportunity to be creative, making some gold, silver and bronze medals to be awarded at the end of your garden Olympic games. Use some cardboard, paint and ribbon, and create some medal masterpieces together!
So this is how to turn your garden into the Olympic games – will you give it a go?
