First-School.ws
Olympic Games
for Kids · Crafts Preschool Lesson Plan Printable Activities
This is an opportunity for young children to get acquainted with the
Olympic Games, but most importantly the central message during the
activities is one of friendship and peace.People
playing and working together in peace and friendship makes for a
better and beautiful world. Activity 1: What are the Olympic Games? Our children can first get to know a little about the Olympic Games. Many people from many countries get together to play games and celebrate friendship, unity and sports every four years. There are Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games. The games take place in a different country. The first Olympic games originated in Greece, a beautiful country in Europe - show this on a map or globe. Tell the children they are going to have their own Kid's Olympic Day Games. Ideally this is best done on a day that children can play outside, any time or season. Visit the Olympic Games Web site and share with the children some great Olympic pictures and a little history of the games. Activity 2: Make an Olympic Flag - A Flag of Friends - Focus on the Circle Shape and Letter O is for Olympic Print this activity page with a resemblance of the official Olympic flag. Make sure to display one that has been colored in, cut and glue to a drinking straw. Explain that this is a very special flag - the Olympic Flag: 1. It has five interlocking colored rings (circles) on a white background. 2. The rings represent the five major land areas of the world - show this land areas on a map or globe. 3. The rings are interlocked to show friendship among the nations. * Count the rings (circles) together, read and identify the color words of each ring. * Have the children stand-up and have them interlock their arms and form a circle, so that they can experience in a sensory way how the rings interlock and unify them. Demonstrate how the rings also resemble a letter O the first letter in the word Olympic. * Make sure that children have crayons or markers with these colors. * Display the flag so children can see the sequence of colors. Give instructions to start coloring the first ring and so forth. * Have children practice scissor cutting skills and indicate to cut out the flag along the solid black line. * The flag can be taped or glued to a drinking straw or leave as is. Get ready to sing and march with their Olympic flag with the songs below. Activity 3: Movement & Music: It's a Small World or The More We Get Together Have the children pretend they are in the Olympic Games and walk or march around the room holding up the flag. Music is essential and a unifier! Here is: It's a Small World (music & lyrics), or The More We Get Together - great for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 year olds (music & lyrics) Activity 4: Olympic Torch Maze Distribute a maze activity page - color version or black and white - (cut out the maze portion from the page and save the medal templates for the next activity). Explain to the children than an Olympic torch bearer runs to light the Olympic cauldron to start the games during the opening ceremonies. Ask the children to see if they can help the Olympic torch bearer to carry the torch to the Olympic cauldron. Encourage children to "stay on the path." Activity 5: Making an Olympic Medal - Focus on Circle Shape Tell the children they are now going to make an Olympic medal to wear for the games. Choose the color or black and white version that was printed with the maze activity. The medal has an optional ribbon holder pattern to glue to the medal, fold over ribbon and glue to the back of medal. The second method is to make a hole with hole punch and children can insert a ribbon about 18 to 24 inches long and help staple or tape the ends. You may be able to purchase inexpensive ribbon that has red, blue, white stripes such as depicted in the medal image or use any ribbon you have at your disposal. Tell the children that athletes in
the Olympic games receive medals for winning games (show
this poster), such as running,
swimming, jumping, and many other sports. Today every one is a
medal winner of friendship. Now let's go to the games! |
Printable Materials:
Olympic Flag of Friends activity coloring page Assembled Medal with Ribbon Olympic Medal Craft & Torch Maze Activity *color *black and white My Olympic Day Printable Picture Frame *color *black & white Olympic Games coloring pages & color posters *scissors |