rhythmic gymnastics

The Top Five–Olympic Sports

It’s time another Top Five list, this one inspired by the Olympic Games! I’m taking a look at my favorite sports to watch in the Summer Olympics:

  • Swimming–I was thinking about my very favorite Olympic sport before the Olympics began, and I was a little surprised to discover that it’s swimming. I love excitement of the races, getting to see world and Olympic records shattered, and learning the back stories of some of the athletes. I think it’s Rowdy Gaines’ love of the sport that really makes me love swimming, though…his passion and enthusiasm for swimming are contagious. As Turkey said this week, “everyone should have something they love as much as Rowdy Gaines loves swimming.” Although, to be honest, I’m not certain that anyone loves something as much as Rowdy Gaines loves swimming!
  • Artistic Gymnastics–I would have assumed that artistic gymnastics is my favorite Olympic sport. My earliest memories of the Olympics are of watching Mary Lou Retton compete, and I still remember not just American gymnasts, but competitors from all over the world from each Olympic Games I have seen. While swimming may be my favorite Olympic sport, gymnastics is definitely a close second…I love watching the athletes fly through the air and complete skills that terrify and delight me!
  • Diving–This sport is kind of where swimming and gymnastics meet, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s one of my favorites. It scares me to death, especially the 10m platform, because I can’t imagine jumping off something so high. I also have very vivid memories of Greg Louganis hitting his head during the Seoul 1988 Games, so I know that it can actually be dangerous. But there’s also an elegance to it, and even though it looks scary to me, it also looks fun!
  • Water Polo–If it wasn’t for the Olympics, I don’t think I’d know anything about this sport. I still don’t understand all of the rules I’m sure, but there’s something so fun about what is essentially handball (another sport I enjoy watching) being played in the water. Plus, it’s kind of an angry sport, which I have to admit, appeals to me!
  • Rhythmic Gymnastics–As is so often the case with the fifth position, this was the most difficult to choose. I considered artistic swimming, which I love, and my new favorite Olympic sport, surfing, but in the end, dancing with a ribbon wins the day. There is so much grace and artistry in rhythmic gymnastics that it really has more in common with ballet than artistic gymnastics, which is part of why I love it.

What are you favorite Olympic sports? Have you discovered something new that’s your new favorite?

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee is really in the Olympic spirit. She loves gymnastics and has been having a great time coming up with her own “floor routines!”

Even though the rhythmic gymnastics competition hasn’t been held yet, we got a sneak peek of the ribbon at the gymnastics gala, and Chickadee has really been having fun making up performances with the ribbon I bought this summer:

And she had to show off her “gold medal” by our medal chart:

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Even with all of that fun, I think the highlight of her day was Moose coming home from his first day of fifth grade!

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Olympics School–Day Five

Our study of geography while we learn about (and watch!) the Olympics has continued. We’ve moved on to the geography of South America, as well as looking at Brazil in greater detail. I’ve had the children look through a travel book, and choose what their must-see sights in Brazil are. I was happy to see that they chose places that are a little off the beaten path. We also talked about each of the host cities of the previous Summer Games, and talked a bit about some of the issues unique to each Olympics.

We haven’t just been learning though…we’ve also been having fun and being silly! Four years ago, we “Bolted” and did the “Mobot.” Since we have seen both Usain Bolt and Mo Farah compete in Brazil, win their races, and do their signature moves, we decided to give it a try again:

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During the London 2012 Olympics, one of our crafts was making rhythmic gymnastics style ribbons, which was fun, even if they didn’t work quite as well as I wanted them to. I decided to do better this time around, so I purchased a ribbon like you might see the gymnasts use. We’ve really had fun playing with it, and Chickadee discovered that if she’s really nice, she might even get her big brother to play with her!

We have a little more geography left to cover, another Brazilian meal to try, and one last craft to do before the Olympics are over…stay tuned!

Olympics School–Day Twelve

We haven’t done any schoolwork since Monday, because we’ve been too busy watching the Olympics to do anything else. But since the Olympics are starting to wind down (and NBC has reduced their Olympic coverage in the afternoon), we had a day of review, plus one more fun craft.

We started by looking through DK Eyewitness: Olympics. The children have already looked through this book (several times), since we started Olympics School, but since it gives such a good overview of everything related to the Olympics, both ancient and modern, it provided an excellent way to review what we’ve learned. I think we even managed to pick up a new fact or two!

We also revisited the London 2012 pictograms. Now that we’re more familiar with some of the more obscure sports, it was fun to go through the list, and guess what they all were again. After we did that, I had the children each draw six pictograms of their own on index cards I had cut in half. It was easy to tell what their favorite events were based on which sports they chose to portray. They did a really good job–it was easy to tell which sports they were representing in their pictograms, and that was the whole point of the activity, so it was a success!

We also did one last craft. We’ve been watching rhythmic gymnastics the last two days, and it made me remember how much I always wanted one of those ribbons when I was a little girl. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to come up with something similar, and after a quick trip to Hobby Lobby, we were ready to get to work. I got some 18 inch dowel rods, probably a little thicker than necessary, but I wanted them to have a good surface for decorating. After the children used markers to personalize the sticks, I attached some curling ribbon (not as wide as I would have preferred–I wanted to get the standard two-inch ribbon like the gymnasts actually use, but it was the prettiest ribbon I could find that didn’t have wired edges, which wouldn’t have worked), to each, using a thinner piece of ribbon and a clear hair elastic. Super easy, and the children have enjoyed twirling their ribbons and doing tricks…and they were even nice enough to let me have a turn!

I have a few activities left for Sunday and the Closing Ceremonies, and then, like the Olympics, our Olympics School will officially come to an end, and we’ll take a week off before the “official” first day of the new school year!

Today’s Passport Stamps: Field Hockey Pictogram and Ribbon