Mini olympics 2024

Mini Olympics at Coolgardie Children’s Centre. (29/07/24) - (02/08/24)

This week we celebrated the Paris Olympic 2024 by participating in our own Mini Olympics here at Coolgardie.

MONDAY – We held an opening ceremony to kick off Our Mini Olympics. During arts and crafts, the Seahorse and Dolphin Rooms put in a lot of effort to ensure that their torches were flawless. Later, the kids strolled around the yard with their torches glowing as we played our favourite kids' bop sound track and snapped a group shot at the playground. Later, the starfish join us to represent Australia with their Australian flags.

 TUESDAY –Today was the first one of our events and we decided to start it off with an obstacle course. Both the Dolphin and Seahorse Room joined on the mat while Educator Bella walked us through each step off the obstacle course. As soon as the children were familiar with the course, we all made one line and took into turns at completing the course. During this time, the children were able to explore their gross and fine motor skills as they jumped over the hurdles, balanced on the stepping stones/ boards, walking over the bridge and finished it off with leaping in between the hula hoops. A medal ceremony marked the end of our event.

 Wednesday –Day two of the Olympic Games. Today, we will be exploring three separate exercises that educator Lara set up. The children from the Dolphin and Seahorse rooms had the opportunity to participate in egg and spoon races during our first activity. The kids ran to the finish line gently yet quickly after carefully placing their egg on the spoon. Sack races was the next event. The children had to sprint to the finish line while putting their legs into the coloured stack. As they crossed the finish line, the children laughed and hopped with delight. Ring tossing was the final activity. The kids threw the ring, hoping it would land on one of the poles, using their gross motor abilities. The children congratulated each other with a hi – five and lots of cheering.

 Thursday –We asked the kids for suggestions for our mini-Olympics on the fourth day of the Olympics. The Dolphin room came up with throwing, and the Seahorse room came up with long jump. Following morning tea, every room gathered on the veranda to hear from Educator Bella about the activities we will be taking part in today. We had the crash mats (long jump) out for the children to see how far they could jump off the top of the foam stairs. We had some children that landed quite a distance. Next, we had our shot put. The children were able to practice their throwing skills. Each child was able to hold onto a bean bag and try and throw it into one of the hula hoops. Up on the veranda, we had our throwing and catching game. The children loved being able to challenge their peers by throwing the ball up high and down low to see if their peer was able to catch it. We ended our day 4 we a big dance party down in the playground.

 Friday – Our last Day of our mini Olympics we ended it with another Obstacle Course. The children were shown each part by Educator Jess before everyone lining up at the balance beam ready to have a go. They were able to start the obstacle course with balancing on the balancing beam. Some of the children had their hands placed out to their side as they placed one foot in front of the other. From there, the children made their way over to the ladder, where they had to use good hand and eye coordination as they frog jumped over each section. Next came the large sensory boards. During this part, the children were able to see the coloured liquid on the boards move as they moved across it. As they came near the end of the obstacle course, the children still had to climb through the large blue tunnel and once again use their balancing sills to step across the stepping buckets before completing their victory dance.