A front row seat for the Summer Olympics
OPINION —
Put on your seatbelt in your imaginary airplane as we fly to the beautiful capital seat of France, Paris, where the 2024 Summer Olympics are being held from Friday, July 26, to Sunday, Aug. 11.
The torch was lit on April 16 in Olympia, Greece, where the games originated. This is a time that we can explain to children that the torch was run through many countries as a “relay pass the torch” kind of activity until the Olympic torch bearer runs to light the Olympic cauldron to start the games during the opening ceremonies. Show your child a globe and the countries this torch has gone through. You and your children can do “pretend torch” carries with a flashlight. Be sure to tune in on Sunday, Aug. 11, when the torch is extinguished.
Some of the sports in the competition are archery, beach volleyball, cycling, diving, equestrian, flag football, gymnastics, handball, judo, karate, lacrosse, swimming, running, tennis, volleyball and water polo, just to name a few.
The Olympic Games provide social ideas and lessons to learn. The Olympic Games teach us about people participating fairly in sports, playing and working together in peace and friendship. This helps your child understand these things make for a better and more beautiful world.
The Olympics bring the world to our front door. Parents, this is a wonderful opportunity to teach your children about the uniqueness of other cultures. This can be witnessed in the opening and closing ceremonies of parades with countries’ flags, dress, skin tones, etc. It provides geography lessons as you show your children maps and globes where the different countries are located. What a life gift you give to your children when you instill cultural appreciation of different ways of life. Imagine the friendships of different social networks your child can truly appreciate.
Express to your child that people from many countries get together to play games and celebrate care, friendship and unity in different sports every four years. Use a math lesson in explaining and pointing out the years the Olympics fall. Also, math lessons can be incorporated as your child keeps up with the medal count of wins for each country, pointing out scores of each Olympian as they strive to win the gold, silver and bronze medals.
You and your children can make an Olympic flag to point out shapes, which are five interlocking colored rings on a white background. The five interlocking rings on the Olympic flag represent the five inhabited continents of the world: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The rings’ connection embodies a unified world through the goals of Olympism.
The Olympics provide a time for children to express their excitement about their team winning. Children love to sing and dance to music. Along with the Olympic theme, “It’s a Small World After All” by Richard Sherman and “The More We Get Together” by Irving King are good sing-along songs to celebrate the Olympics. Children get very excited and love to be the leaders in singing and making the motions. Too, patriotic pride can be expressed when our National Anthem is played in a United States gold win.
After your child views the summer Olympics, they can do swimming motions with freestyle, breaststroke, back stroke or, if you have a pool, your family can have relays. Simply tossing a beach ball or balloons back and forth for family fun pulls them in for pretend Olympics. I love to blow bubbles with preschoolers during the summer, watching as they chase the rainbow bubbles around. Having tricycle or bicycle family fun races embraces the cycling Olympic sport. Also, to demonstrate the running races in the Olympics, children can run, skip and hop with other friends or family members. You can encourage your children by making small Olympic medals or just giving out stickers as your child participates in the pretend games.
Over the next few weeks, with our children having a front row seat to the 2024 Summer Olympics, we can point out that teamwork is important. It takes trusting each other, encouraging each other and relying on each others’ strengths. We need to point out to our children that even though we strive to win, that winning isn’t everything. We can show them that we can learn from our losses, as well. We learn to keep on trying after our failures and disappointments, and we learn to demonstrate good sportsmanship. Point out the hugs and handshakes that competitors demonstrate during the games.
With the Olympic games this summer you and your child will learn many lessons. Who knows — you just might have a future Olympic Star in your family. Let the games begin!
Beth Pinyerd has taught many years and holds a master’s degree in early childhood education.
