You may not be parenting the next gold medallist, but this year’s Olympics are a great opportunity to encourage your children to get back out there and move more, after so long stuck inside during lockdown. There’s plenty of online resources to help guide you through constructing a mini-sporting event in your back garden, namely from the likes of the nursery chain Kiddi Caru or any dedicated parent blog.
If you’re looking for easy and simple, then you’ve come to the right place. Read on as we talk you through some ways to bring the Olympic games home that require little effort.
Egg And Spoon Race
The Olympics is essentially a glorified, and bigger scale, sports day. So why not introduce some of those classic events into your sporting schedule? An egg and spoon race is incredibly easy to construct, and can provide endless fun. Either invest in a dedicated set, made of plastic and minimising the possibility of mess, or do it the old-fashioned way – with real eggs and spoons from the kitchen drawer. If you’re having the race indoors, and opting for real eggs, hard-boiling them is the way to go, especially if your little racers are wobbly on their feet.
Relay Race
If you’ve got your own little herd of children, or they’ve got friends round, a relay race is one of the easiest events to set up. Decide on a course, either the length of the garden, hallway or nearest field will do, and fashion a baton out of pretty much anything you have to hand. If you’re looking for a way to break out the glitter glue, repurposing toilet or kitchen roll tubes is a great way to go. Once these are ready to go, line the children up at different points along the track and off they go!
Bean Bag Throw
Admittedly a far cry from the usual Olympics events, testing your child’s aim with bean bags and a makeshift target is an easy and fun thing to do. At a stretch, we would liken it to the shotput or javelin – basically anything with throwing as its main requirement. Get yourself a set of beanbags and decide what the parameters are going to be. You can either use a bucket or washing basket as the target, or use jumpers or blankets to create checkpoints on the ground. Just use whatever you have and make it work!
A Mini Triathlon
Why not combine your favourite events from the big day and set up your very own mini triathlon? With this, you can easily combine the bean bag throw, relay, and egg and spoon race, as well as many others. The triathlon style event provides variety to keep your children engaged, whilst allowing them to explore a whole host of skills. Think sports day and dust off those old pillow cases – it’s time for a sack race! Get out a scarf and there you have a mini three-legged venture! It’s really that easy, and a great cost-effective alternative to buying new equipment, should this be a concern.
