Early Years Olympic Challenges

The Olympics was an obvious choice as a topic for the school holiday time. We have children ranging in age from barely 2 to nearly 5 who are together for this time.  We set Olympic challenges, some of which will be ongoing and others changed from day to day and week to week according to the children’s interests, achievement and the weather!  The emphasis is on having a go and doing it better than you did last time. The Olympic spirit!

We used the ELHQ Olympic banner to draw attention to the challenges and using the medals to illustrate, we set the goal of achieving 3 stickers to gain a bronze medal, 4 a silver and 5 a gold. Under a heading what can you do to get a sticker? We wrote the challenges on separate A4 sheets of coloured paper with a simple drawing to catch the children’s attention. However you could use the ELHQ editable flashcards or notepaper.

We made a very simple A5 chart for each child with the Olympic rings big enough to fit a sticker inside each ring. We put a numeral in each ring too. We made the stickers ourselves using google images on the Olympic, sporting themes. Some of the challenges were simple for every child to achieve and centred around their known interests. eg dig a hole in the sandpit as deep as the tallest spade. In the hot weather we limited the amount of physical activity but included target throwing, standing on one leg, kicking a goal, basket ball, dropping a pebble onto a target at the bottom of a bucket of water, ball and cup games etc.  All this went alongside other planned activities centred around the children’s interests.

Some children really responded to the challenges and were keen to get stickers. We differentiated the activities eg. target games had lines at different  distances. At circle time we asked children how many stickers they had and presented medals to winners on a podium, accompanied by the singing of the national anthem (you can download from internet.) We used the medals to create our medals – they fitted exactly onto the badges we had left over from the Bernados Toddle Waddle.

The whole experience provides opportunities for the children not only to develop their physical skills but also encourages learning in all other areas of development eg PSRN –calculating (how many more stickers are needed?);  CD (creating their own medals, ribbons, monsters as targets); KUW (designing and making their own cup and ball games and learning about the Olympics); PSED (gaining confidence and meeting challenges) ;CLL (‘reading’ challenges and signs and finding their own chart).

The adults role in all this was to notice when children could benefit from being challenged, to think of new challenges and ideas based on their observed interests to inspire children. We will keep the Olympic Challenges going throughout the holiday period depending on how long the children are interested.