Theme of the Week is a post where we ask readers like you to comment with ideas for a particular theme. What ideas and suggestions do you have? What game, craft, apparel choice, theme meal, evening activity, special event, song, skit, or anything else would you do at camp if your theme was…
Olympics
Below are my five suggestions. What you got? Leave your suggestions in the comments area below.
- Gather a few camp staff and campers that have been coming to your camp for years. These are the ones that will carry the torch to the campfire. Line the rest of the campers along a route where the torch will be passed from one runner to the next. Play the Olympic theme music. Light the campfire to represent the beginning of the camp Olympics.
- Have a daily competition or two (or ten). Camp staff should be judges and referees. Don’t want to recreate real Olympic games? Have crazy games and relays.
- Have a competition where the campers create a new Olympic game. The winning game is then played by the campers.
- Have campers create flags from made up countries.
- Fly an Olympic flag on your flag pole.
Want more ideas? Check out this post.
Have an awards ceremony where at the end all campers receive a special recognition award and ribbon
Nice Tania. I agree, you have to have an awards ceremony. I also like the idea of the video at the ceremony. Sounds like you hold an Olympics at your camp.
video the competitions and show a “highlites” reel at the awards ceremony
How about Intergalactic Olympics where each team comes from a different planet? Make paper plate alien ships for the discus throw. Use old wrapping paper tubes to make Rocket Ship Javelins. Three-legged races work well for this theme too.
@Daisy – I love it. I think groups would have a blast coming up with different alien races they can be and what they would wear. You can create all kinds of interesting Intergalactic Olympic events. Lets just hope the Jedis don’t come this year. They always win.
We let each cabin choose a country for their cabin. One of the boys cabin went for Jamaica and their skits all week were the songs from the movie “Cool Running’s.” We awarded medals at the end of camp for our all camp games and clean cabin winners.
@Sparks – I like the idea of cabins choosing their own country. That could also work on an Around the World theme where each cabin has to come up with challenges, a dance, etc. of that country.
Cool Runnings is a great movie.
heey, does anyone have an olympic theme songs that are liek a repeat after me style? I need one asap! thankks! 🙂
Some silly olympic ideas…
Standing on one foot
Longest hula hooper
Bubble gum blowing contest
Smile endurance contest
Seed spitting contest
balloon popping
Coffee can stilts race
crab walk
Make sure to say, “Let the Games begin” before each event.
You’re on a roll, Laureen. Nice.
COLOR OLYMPICS is also a great idea, for the groups to have one color that they dress up in, and to work together and cheer one another on during the different activities mentioned above.
I love the Alien Olympics idea!! I might have to borrow that one for our “Adventures in Outerspace” week this summer.
Here is what we did last year at camp for Summer Olympics:
http://corduroysbutton.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/summer-olympics-camp-theme/
Being an Olympic year, we’re looking to throw an Olympics themed Colour War. There have been Olympic days int he past, so we thought we’d challenge ourselves and try and pull off a Winter Olympic day. I was wondering if anyone has ideas about how to adapt summer activities and make them winter themed?
When you make your promotions how do you word it without getting flagged by the IOC? I thought they pretty much owned that word. Please help cause I am in japan and we are coming up closer to the olympics
Lots of camps, schools, clubs and other youth organizations use the word Olympics. In my opinion, the IOC is not looking to hurt youth organizations that are using the word Olympics as they would with apparel companies and corporations looking strictly to profit from the word. However, could the IOC send a cease and desist letter? Absolutely. If you want to avoid that, it’s easy enough to name your program after your camp or club (i.e. The Ace Club Games). Or you can do what many camps do and call it Color War or Color Games instead of the Olympics and have each team represent a color instead of a country. Hope this helps.