Family Life: Olympics

For Family night this week we held our own Franson Family Olympics. It was a success! My son had actually be looking forward to it for a couple weeks, ever since I mentioned the idea to him.

Before we headed to the park for some games, we had a "Opening Ceremony" in our home. We read this book to the kids...

And made the torches you see them holding in the picture above. The torches are just simple construction paper cones with crumpled red and orange tissue paper inside.

For the gold medals I just used a tiny dot of hot glue to attach a chocolate coin to a piece of ribbon. I had thought about using something healthier, but the chocolate coins were just too easy.

We headed to the park where we could have more room and played 3 games: a family relay race, Frisbee discus, and a sort of volley ball where we stood in a circle and our only goal was to not let the ball touch the ground (pretty hard to do with a giggly 5 year old!).

Earlier in the day I had each of the kids pick a different country out of a hat that they were to represent during our Family Olympics. I grabbed some books at the library on each of the countries and we read about them and colored a picture of their flag to hang in the house.

It wasn't real grand but it was a lot of fun family time. Sometimes I think we (well, at least I) get caught up in making everything over the top perfect, with tons of expensive games, treats and prizes. I've noticed this with birthday parties especially! You know... kids can use their imagination. A couple simple props is all you need to get their minds rolling and to make it memorable. Don't get weighed down by doing too much preparation... just get out and play!