Indoor Olympics

Materials:

• String
• onion bag balls
• wrapping paper tube

The Olympics, the pinnacle of sports achievement, right in your living room! You can stage your own indoor Olympics by putting together an assortment of simple sports challenges for your kids. To get your children into the spirit of the games, have them put together their own Olympic uniforms (T-shirts, pj's, sweats, etc.) and start off with these indoor sporting events:

Slither race. Contestants slither along the length of the room on their stomachs, without using their arms or hands.

Balance beam. Athletes walk on a piece of string on the floor.

Weight lifting. Make two mesh onion bags filled with wadded-up newspaper and held closed with a rubber band or knotted string. Crumple the newspapers loosely so that they fill up the onion bag. Tie onion-bag balls to a wrapping paper tube for a pretend weight-lifting competition.

Triathlon. Combine three simple activities for a triathlon event.

Knee races. Have the competitors kneel on the rug for this race.

Signal the start of the games with a shout from a toilet paper kazoo and watch the athletes strut their stuff!

More on: Games for the Whole Family

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.