My kids have done a lot of movie-watching, messaging, and Minecrafting in the past couple of months. Like everyone else, our routines were upended and I’ve been doing my best to keep my three girls occupied and to limit screen time. My 10 year-old gymnast is missing her hours in the gym, so I tasked her with organizing a Family Olympics. Today, I’m sharing my easy template for you to use, and plenty of event ideas to incorporate into your own Family Olympics. Let’s get those kids (and us moms) off the couch!
Get everything you need to create your own Family Olympics with my printable pack.
Includes event ideas, signs, scheduling pages, and awards
Step 1: Who’s In Charge?
First things first, you have to decide if your family works best by committee, or if you need to appoint a task force leader. We have tried both ways. In the past, our we allowed each family member to submit several event suggestions and made sure that we included something from each person.
This time, we put our 10 year-old in charge, let her decide on all the events, and then swapped some out when siblings threatened to revolt over a few of her choices. Not everyone is on board with a pull-up contest, or six different iterations of plank holds.
I want to encourage my kids to develop their strengths, so it made sense for me to put the child who was most enthusiastic about the project in charge. If no one in your family is excited about pushups, make it a silly Olympics. Still active, but do animal movement contests, or a race carrying stuffed animals on a cookie sheet without dropping any.
Step 2: Brainstorm Event Ideas
Whoever is in charge now needs to come up with event ideas. Make a list, knowing that you likely won’t be doing everything on the list. I’ve got a few lists here to get you started:
Event Ideas
- jumping jacks
- wall sits
- plank holds
- pushups
- situps
- foot race
- bike race
- burpees
- stair climbs
- hill climbs
- lunges
- squats
- long jump
- high jump
- hurdles
- tricep dips
- mountain climbers
Use your judgment depending on your family. Go for it if everyone is excited to challenge themselves. If your kids start groaning the minute you mention burpees, make sure you incorporate unusual or silly exercises to keep it fun.
Fun Event Ideas
- crab walk race
- frog jump race
- carry something on a cookie sheet or piece of flat cardboard from Point A to Point B (if you drop something you have to start over!)
- somersaults (how many in a row)
- cartwheels (how many in a row)
- dance contest
- roll a ball with your nose race
- dribble a basketball (timed or race from Point A to Point B)
- jump rope contest
- hula hoop contest
- headstand contest
- ladder hop (lay a real ladder down, draw with chalk on sidewalk, or spray paint on grass)
- tree yoga pose contest
- one foot hop race
- grapevine race
- run backwards race
- back leg raises with a toy tucked in your toes or behind your knee
- throwing contest with pillows or stuffed animals
If you need a few more non-traditional ideas, visit Mommy Poppins for a list of game-type exercises you could incorporate.
Step 3: Finalize Family Olympic Events
Now that you have a HUGE list of fun ideas for your Family Olympics, you need to narrow it down. We find that our max is around 12. Much past that, someone is complaining that they want to be done, and I’m sick of telling everyone it’s supposed to be FUN! I would suggest starting with 7-10, but you can always adjust. If you want a FUN Family Olympics, the most important piece of advice I can give to moms is…BE FLEXIBLE. Don’t force an idea of what it should be. If your kids are done after six events, so be it. If someone decides not to participate in an event, make them a judge or cheer squad.
We used a simple block template to list our events, participants and scores. Depending on the event, the score would be a time, number of completed reps, or just a place value (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) You can download my Family Olympics Printable to use for your own Family Olympics. I included the list of event ideas above to make it even easier for you!
Step 4: Make It Fun
Unless you are a family of future Olympians, your kids are more interested in having fun than perfecting their form. Our family held a silly flag ceremony, complete with scarves, sticks, and ribbons. We gave a few good-natured DNFs (Did Not Finish) and DBIs (Disqualified by Injury) to dad…midlife comes with lots of back and knee problems 🙂 We held a chaotic awards ceremony including 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place recognition, plus the Good Tryer award for mom. For the record, I did win the jumping jacks contest with 250 jumping jacks! Go mom!
If you’re tired of seeing your kids glued to Netflix, try a Family Olympics this summer. Put them in charge. With a little direction, they can come up with some family fun you might want to put on a summer and winter rotation!
Items You Might Use for Your Fun Family Olympics
Top Tips for a Successful Family Olympics
- Keep ’em laughing
My kids are pretty competitive, and our Family Olympics is sometimes an exercise in keeping one or the other from storming off in a huff. I try to minimize this by making sure we include a variety of events that are not all based on physical prowess. But the most important thing I do is crack jokes, exaggerate my efforts, and exchange trash talk with their dad. This time, I even attempted cartwheels, to my kids’ delight! - Keep it flexible
Allow for last-minute, even mid-event additions or cancellations, rule changes, and even participation requirements. Come to an agreement or compromise you can all live with, and call it good. It’s not REALLY the Olympics. You can do what you want. - Keep ’em hydrated
Seriously. Especially in the heat of summer, make sure you fill water bottles and encourage your kids to drink water. Try having a water station to cool off in between events. You can include squirt guns, sponges to dip and squeeze over their heads, and a cooler packed with water bottles and Gatorade or popsicles for a treat.
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