I love the Olympics; summer, winter, para, special all of it. I’ll stay up into the wee hours of the night to watch a curling match live from Sochi or a springboard diving competition from Sydney. The Olympic Games are mesmerizing. To share my love of competition and the spirit of the games with my kiddos I put together an Olympic Games party full of food and a friendly backyard competition.
Olympic Themed Lunch
To start our day of Olympic activities we first fueled up with a lunch of champions. To create this festive table setting, begin by covering your table with a red tablecloth and layer on an international flag table runner. Next focus on the place settings. To create these, I use bright blue plastic dinner plates and top with flag-themed dessert plates. Finish the place settings with green chevron napkins and silverware in a themed wrapper. The sports drinks are also covered with the same themed wrapper.
For the centerpieces, spray paint an empty soda bottle gold and then stuff with red, orange and yellow tissue paper. The finished product is a nod to the Olympic torch. On the chandelier above the dining table, I cut up an international flag banner and re-strung the flags to hang vertically.
With the table decorations set, turn your attention to the food. For the Olympic Games lunch, I chose to serve pizza and fruit. In keeping with the theme serve the fruits in the shape of the Olympic rings. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, sliced grapes and pineapple chunks make great fruit rings.
The Olympic ring theme continues with a pennant banner and pom-pom decoration leading out to the backyard. The pom pom rings are easy to create using store-bought paper poms. Simply unfold and hang.
Backyard Olympic Events
We started the backyard event competition with a bean bag toss and a balance beam walk. To create the bean bag toss, use the same blue plastic plates from the Olympic lunch and bean bags from a cornhole game. To make the balance beam use a couple of cinder blocks for the supports and a 2×4 for the beam. All the signage for the backyard Olympic events can be found here.
Bean Bag Toss and Balance Beam
The next backyard competition was the hurdles. Or rather, a modified version of hurdles for little ones with short legs. To make the hurdles use foam pool noodles and bend them slightly before securing to the ground with tent stakes. The more bend in the noodle, the higher the hurdle. Our hurdles were low, but still quite challenging for our littlest. After almost toppling over as he jumped the hurdles, he then resorted to crawling under them. After the hurdle competition, we moved to a kid’s version of the javelin throw.
Hurdles
The javelin throw is the trickiest to make and assemble. To make the rings, start by using duct tape to create five different colored circles. This will require A LOT of duct tape. When all the rings are assembled, use more duct tape the secure the rings together (three rings on one level and two below it). To make the posts, slip pool noddles over tall, metal yard stakes. When the posts are secured, duct tape the rings to the posts.
Javelin Throw
I used a shorter pool noodle as the javelin. It was too flimsy. I suggest using a shorter piece of PVC pipe or something that is more rigid so it will fly more easily. The javelin throw was also the hardest event for the boys to get the participate in.
Our final, backyard Olympic event was a sprint. I didn’t measure how long the course was, just the length of the yard. This event is the easiest to set up and was the favorite event of the day. For a dramatic finish, I tied a piece of streamer between two trees as the finish line tape. I suggest having extra streamers on hand for this event, as the boys’ enjoyed breaking through the finish line multiple times.
Sprint
Overall, the Olympic Games party and backyard competition was a fun family event featuring good food and fun activities. For more Mommy Baggage parties see our posts on Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas Movie parties.
Happy Adventuring, Rochelle