Family Fun > Olympic Themed Sleepover Party for Girls
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanrabimov/2016/05/30/fashioning-the-olympics-rio-top-six/#187d824a1625
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For girls, it’s all about the clothes, right? Let them vote for which country’s uniform they like best. This year Forbes has photos of 5 countries. Simply print out the photos, and let them put a dot sticker on the one they like the best. The U.S. uniforms are so boring this year, it may inspire them to design some of their own!
Let them design their own uniforms for their choice of sport and country. Downloading coloring pictures may help those who don’t feel confident about drawing the whole figure themselves. You can go to these sites, or google “coloring pictures of the olympics” for more options.
Design Teddy Graham or Gingerbread
Use icing to decorate Teddy Grahams cookies. These are REALLY tiny, so this is an activity for older girls. You could make gingerbread cookies, and since they are bigger, it would be easier to decorate for any age. Provide at least 4 colors of icing. Put the icing in decorator bags, or ziplock freezer bags and cut off a TINY corner to squeeze out the icing. If you don’t use freezer bags, the seams of the bag inevitably tear open, and out comes this huge glob of icing!
Design uniforms with Toilet paper
Give girls toilet paper and colored crepe paper streamers. They can get into pairs and make uniforms out of toilet paper, then use colored streamers for colored accents on the uniforms. Scotch tape helps, but is not essential. Give prizes for best, prettiest, funniest, most glamorous, etc.
Photo Booth
Provide a variety of shorts, t-shirts, sweats, and bathing suits to dress up like athletes and take photos. Props like boxes for a medal stand, and medals from a dollar store will make it more exciting. You can even present them with a bouquet of fake flowers, also from a dollar store.
If the girls are excited about watching the finals for gymnastics or synchronized swimming, etc., the most exciting event of the party will be to watch the contests, so plan the party to coincide with these. If you want to kick off the olympic season, or to wrap up the olympic season to celebrate the final medal count for your country, the opening or closing ceremonies would be a good opportunity for a party, too. However, these ceremonies are usually too long and boring for kids to sit through, so you may want to provide other activities for any kids who are not interested, if that is when you want to have the party.
Let’s face it, if you are planning an all night party, there are times when you could use a little peace and quiet!! A movie is an easy solution. There are lots of movies based on the olympics, but few are appropriate for children. “Nadia” may be one that your girls might enjoy, a 1984 movie about a 1976 olympian who got the first perfect 10 score in women’s gymnastics. Warning: Nadia does try to commit suicide before the movie ends.
“Cool Running” is a fun one, and even though it is a movie about the winter olympics, it is about a country that is hot year round, so it is appropriate for both summer and winter olympics! Another option is “National Velvet”, especially for girls who like horses.
Food for an Olympics themed party can be as elaborate or simple as you want. Here, Teddy Graham cookies swim in a jello “pool” and pole vault and run a relay on a cake made into a track. You can adapt Teddy Grahams to whatever sport your kids are interested. If that is too much work, let the girls form M&M’s into olympic rings--make it a race, and everyone is a winner because then they can eat them when they are done! Breakfast is really easy--either doughnuts or bagels--already in the ring shape. For these and more ideas, see my page on “Fun foods for the olympics.”
Mary Lou Retton, was the first
American female to win gold medals in gymnastics in 1984. She had the same coach as Nadia! Youtube has an 8 minute documentary.
Watching: Choose what will be fun for the kids
Eating: Olympic themed foods can make it more exciting
Doing is way more fun than watching
Uniforms and Olympic clothing
Designing
Fun Ways to Celebrate the Olympics with Kids
Decorate with flags from different countries. Sometimes you can find these at dollar stores. Keep track of your country’s gold medals, or try being the commentator for an event, or find out the back story on athletes. These are just a few of the ideas that can be used for an olympic themed sleepover party.
Silly Summer Olympics
Try these silly games that have been inspired by the olympics, like a paper plate discus throw, or toothpick javelin throw. Be sure to award medals for each event. You can make the medals even more desirable if they are made out of chocolate!
Use Olympics to get kids excited about exercising
Some kids are very active, and need to move around a lot. For these kids, it would be good to organize activities that really get them moving so they are not hyper and tear up the house all night with that pent up energy. Here are ways to adapt some of the olympic sports for a sleepover party.
The best website that I have found (other than mine, of course) for olympic activities for kids is the Activity Village. A lot of what they do is suitable for schools, such as writing activities. But they also have some activities just for fun, such as crafts, sports, and coloring pages.
How other people have celebrated olympics with kids
Family Fun > Olympic Themed Sleepover Party for Girls