The Winter Olympics starts this weekend! Below are some ideas for an Olympics-themed club.
Attire and Decor
Tell kids to dress in their favorite Winter Olympics attire. Most kids will just wear snowboarding gear, but some will break out the spandex bobsledding uniforms with motorcycle helmets. Offer prizes for the best outfits.
You can buy a 41 flag pennant string on Amazon for $11.
Forming Teams (Countries)
It’s fun to have teams compete in games throughout club. You can ask kids ahead of time to wear a certain color and represent a certain country. Ex: Seniors (‘Merica: Red, White, Blue), Juniors (Italy: Red, Green, White), Sophomores (Germany: Red, Black, Yellow), Freshmen (Jamaica: Black, Green, Yellow).
You can also buy 3×5 flags from each country on Amazon that teams could hold as they parade it.
You can also form teams (countries) upon arrival by putting stickers on kids or marking their hands.
Here are some other creative ways to divide into teams for mixers.
Music
Play the Olympic Fanfare music as kids enter club.
Have your first club song be the Star Spangled Banner, and ask a few kids to come out waving a big flag. You can also sing “Proud to be an American” and other ideas from ‘Merica club.
The hit song “This Is Me,” from “The Greatest Showman” is being used by NBC during the Olympics and it would be a fun one to sing at club.
Mixers
Ski Team Race
Get four 8ft-long 2 x 4’s, drill six holes in the wood, put rope through the holes and tie a knot on the bottom. Have 6 kids stand on 2 of the 2×4’s, each holding 2 ropes. Picture cross-country skiing. You can also make foot loops instead of ropes they hold. Here’s a video to give you an idea. If kids fall, they start over. Have 2 teams race, then the next 2 teams, then a championship run. Ask a parent to help build the ‘skis.’
Games
Ski Jump
You need 10 balloons, 2 pillows, and 2 sets of skis, boots and poles, easy to borrow. Have 2 kids go at the same time and make sure they can fit in the ski boots. Wearing the boots and skis and holding the poles, they jump side to side over a pillow. When the crowd yells “bump” (on cue from a leader) they must sit down on a chair and burst a balloon. Have them burst 5 balloons each, for the last balloon, use a water balloon. Play fast music in the background and have a skit character that’s a hyped up ski-instructor sell the game.
Video Games
Connect a Wii-Fit to the projector and have kids compete in ski and snowboard games on the big screen!
Team Bobsled Races
One year we got refrigerator boxes and cut off one side of them to look like bobsleds. It would be fun contact work to get together with kids ahead of time and paint the boxes to actually represent the countries that will be competing during club. Check with Walmart, Lowes, and other local businesses to find big boxes. Have 3 smaller folks from each team get in the box and have another 2 folks push the box. Depending upon the floor of your club room, this will work great, or not work at all. We did it in a carpeted basement and just made the teams race back and forth across the room a couple times. A gym floor would be money.
Crowd Charades
You can download the Winter Games edition on DownloadYouthMinistry.com
Olympic Rings Slingshot
Each team will have 3 Tasty Cakes to launch with a balloon launcher at the Olympic rings projected on the wall from the back of the club room. Point values (shown on the screen) will be awarded for each successful hit.
You can download a PDF of Winter Olympic Club plans from Carroll County YL. Thanks to Matt Michael for sharing!
If you have other ideas for Winter Olympics Club, leave them in the comments below or email us here.
