Olympic theme ring games for kids

Thanking the Domestic Goddesque for kindly passing the torch over to my hands, with neither of us dropping it, I’m joining in the international group of bloggers who are joining forces to bring you lots of fun ideas to celebrate the Olympics with your children.

The Games give us the perfect reason to encourage our children to be fit and healthy and enjoy some active play. Here are three fun ring games you could try.

Active play for kids: ring games

You can play these ring games anywhere you have some space: inside, out in your yard, on the driveway, in the playground. We’re using chalk to draw our our rings, but ribbons would work well too, or try hula hoops for the treasure hunt idea.

Ring game version one: Musical Rings

Based on the traditional game of musical chairs

1. Prepare five cards, each with a differently coloured ring drawn on it.

2. Play some music and dance around. You could use national anthems, the theme from Chariots of Fire or, my girls favourite, Into Action by Tim Armstrong (as featured on the classic film Hotel for Dogs).

3. After some jogging, dancing and jumping around, stop the music and hold up one of the ring cards. All the children need to run quickly to stand in that colour ring. Take care – no pushing!

4. The last person in the ring is out but gets to hold up the next coloured card. Keep playing until only one player is left. The winner gets the gold medal!

Ring game version two: treasure hunt

How many items can you find around and about to match the colours of your rings? If you have lots of children playing you can split them into coloured teams and see who can find the most items. Or get the children moving  by using a stopwatch and giving them just a few minutes to find as many things as they can.

Ring game version three: torch procession

This game works best when you use great big rings – so pick somewhere with lots of space and draw out large circles. Pick a leader, who might like to hold a torch. Let them process around each ring in turn and enjoy some gross-motor skills practice as you play follow-the-leader. The torch bearer gets to choose what everyone in the procession must do. They pick an action and everyone else follows: lots of fun for toddlers and preschoolers. You could walk, run, jog, hop, skip, jump, tiptoe, scoot, crawl, cycle, take little steps, take big ones, walk backwards, go fast, go slow!

Get other fabulous Olympic-theme ideas

Just like the real thing, we are passing a bloggers’ torch right around the world. Each blogger has a fabulous idea for you! I’m passing the torch to Montessori Tidbits: go visit tomorrow and see what fun idea they have.

Have you got an Olympic-themed idea?

Add it to this blog hop! You can also grab the blog-hop code and include it in one of your posts – come and join the fun!

If you’d like some more idea on how to use chalk in your garden for art and play, come and see how we use it in our Garden Classroom.