Looking to Host a Summer Olympic Event? Try These Game Ideas!

Is your children’s ministry looking to host a Summer Olympic event? Try using these ideas to really enhance your experience!

Host a Summer Olympic Event

Begin your Summer Olympic Games with a potluck barbecue. Have someone run in with a torch to light the grill! After eating, let the games begin. Then, with great pomp and circumstance, give ribbons to everyone at the end of the day.

Water Balloon Races

Form teams for these relays.

• Balance balloons on tennis rackets, and race to a turn-around line and back.
• Have each team member race while carrying (and not popping!) a water balloon between his or her knees.
• Form pairs. Place a water balloon between partners’ waists, and challenge them to make their way to a line and back without breaking their balloon.

Squirt Bottle Games

Use empty dish detergent bottles for these games:

• Squirt and Fill: Form two teams. Each team stands in a semi-circle and chooses one person to be “It.” It holds a small plastic bowl. Everyone else gets a squirt bottle filled with water. On “go,” each team squirts water into its bowl. The team with the fullest bowl wins.
• Soak Down: Each team uses shaving cream to make a “hat” on one of their teammates. Players stand around this person and wash away the foam with their squirt bottles. The team with the first clean player wins.

Team Games

• Wacky Volleyball: Use a regular volleyball net or tie a rope across an open area. Swish a trash bag in the air to fill it with air, then close it quickly and tie it with a twist-tie. Use the bag as a volleyball until it deflates, then refill.
• Centipede Obstacle Course: Teams line up, and players place their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. The centipede maneuvers through these obstacles: Walk along a 2×4 beam, stomp on balloon “ants,” step over a low fence build with pool noodles and plastic cones, and duck under a limbo rod.

Mary Davis
Montrose, Iowa

Decathlon for Fun

Add these 10 wacky Olympic events to your Summer Olympics:

Throwing Contests

Measure the distance that contestants throw:

1. Colored or labeled ping-pong balls — two throws per person.
2. Straws — two throws per person.
3. Paper plates — two throws per person.

Food Sprints

4. Give each contestant an Oreo. Have contestants place the Oreo on their foreheads and work it down to their mouth only using the muscles in their face to move the cookie—no hands allowed! First to successfully bite onto an Oreo wins.
5. Contestants race 10 yards and put four saltine crackers in their mouths. The first to chew and whistle wins.
6. Contestants race 10 yards, pick up a squirt gun, and spray to knock a plastic cup off of a table 3 to 5 feet away. Contestants race under tables and back.

Relays

7. Team members place their shoes in a pile. Then one at a time each teammate races to the shoes, puts his or her shoes on, and returns to the team.
8. Each team has an empty 16-ounce bottle, a large sponge, and a bucket of water. Each player races 10 yards to the bottle and squeezes water from the sponge into the bottle. Players return to the line and repeat until their team’s bottle is filled.
9. Each teammate races 10 yards to a piece of bubble gum, blows a bubble large enough to cover his or her nose when it breaks and returns to the line.

Dan Haertl
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Looking for more Olympic games? Check out these 6 Awesome Olympic-Style Games for Families! For daily posts of encouragement and ideas, follow us on Facebook!

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