This is an exciting time, once every four years, the world comes together. Have some fun with it, and help teach your children how special it is by doing your own family Olympics.
Depending how competitive your family is as well as the age of children you may choose to have the child participants count for points or not. Whether or not you are counting them for points encourage children to participate, it's a great chance to teach them sportsmanship, as well as let them burn off some energy and get some exercise.
My family had our family vacation last week, so we did the Olympics a little bit early, and it was the first year that any of my nieces and nephews competed. The oldest is 5 years old, and the youngest that competed it 2 years old. When the kids were all too young to participate, we just did events during nap time, or after they had gone to bed. The first year participating they had a blast, they got really into their teams, and were eager to help their team succeed.
We selected our teams by drawing numbers, we did one drawing for adults, and one for children to keep the teams as evenly matched as possible. Each adult was asked in advance to come with an event prepared and bring any supplies necessary. With a week long vacation we did one or two events a day, however you could squeeze it all in during a day, or over a weekend.
Allowing everyone to pick their own event ensures that each person has the opportunity to play up their strengths, and you get a good mix of classic and silly activities. When young children are participating try to keep their attention, focus and motor skills in mind when planning events. A few events we did this year included:
1. Musical Chairs
2. "Junk in the Trunk" minute to win it style game
3. Pass the Water
4. Swim Fishy Swim
5. Classic Footrace
6. Sandbar Long Jump
Let loose and have a little fun, if your family is theatrical do an opening ceremony and a gold medal ceremony, if not jump right into the games. Enjoy some family bonding with a little friendly athletic competition. If your family participates, we'd love to see your pictures, share them on our social media!