The 2016 Summer Olympics are underway and daycare couldn't be more thrilled about it! All of the kids are extremely interested in any event. All week long we've had picnic lunches in the living room as we tune into the Olympics. The kids are mighty skilled at chewing and chanting "USA! USA! USA!" (or as Harrison says "go Iowa United States!") at the same time. Since I knew about the excitement surrounding the Olympics, we made Monday an Olympics Day.
We had Ribbonball Toss competitions....until it got thrown on the roof and I couldn't get it down. The Ribbonball Toss round 2 will have to be continued another day. I still have the kid's scores written down for when we finish.
The kids kindly cheered me on while I tried to get it down. The gutter won.
We ran races across the front yard. A few of the braver kids tried out hurdles as well.
The backyard held gymnastics and soccer. The kids mostly practiced somersaults and cartwheels. I didn't break out our balance beam for fear of one of the kiddos trying out one of the moves they had seen on TV.
Obviously she nailed the landing of her somersault!
Even the babies got in on the gymnastics.
Soccer was mostly the kids just kicking the ball around. However, when Silvia (my cousin and also one of my daycare helpers for summer) the soccer player came, she taught the kids a few moves, how to play goalie, how to pass the ball, etc.
The Olympics color sheets.
The only thing that the kids really wanted to do for our Olympics Day was "swimming in one of the really big pools. We can wear life jackets." I don't normally keep the TV on (nearly) all day, but this week I've kept it on the Olympics. I've been shocked how interested the kids have been in every event. They've wanted to learn all about each event. It's also been a big geography lesson. As the kids watch, they wanted to know which country each athlete is from. We've pulled out our globe several dozen times to find the countries and where they are compared to us. I'm not sure who did it, but Rio got circled in red marker on one of the globes.
Now I'll have two years to decide what activities we do for the Winter Olympics...