The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Olympic Sports Small World Play

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With just 2 weeks to go until the Olympics are held in our home town, we have been having some Olympic playtime fun with a small world play sports scene! 

I am a HUGE fan of Playmobil and truly think it’s one of the best designed toys for children, young and old. I love the attention to detail and some of their imaginative play sets are nothing short of awesome! (This is not a sponsored post- just my opinion!) So when I spotted these Olympic sports figures for just a couple of pounds each in a local toy store I just had to add them to our growing collection.

 I found some A3 green card and layer that as the grass base. On top of that I cut out and stuck down an oval shape for the race track and used the leftover piece to create the gymnasium. I drew some lanes with white crayon, added a couple of Olympic flags, and used some coloured straws as finish line markers, stuck in play dough.

 I set most of it up as an Invitation to Play for the girls to discover, and it was fantastic to see their faces!

 Cakie added the seating area all by herself, using wooden blocks and various people she could find. I love that Belle has snuck in at the back and even appears to be clapping!There’s also a dalmatian puppy, a fairy, a train driver and a couple of Queens, for good measure. Together we attached the Union Jack cake topper flags to their hands, using more play dough to stick them. What a patriotic crowd!

The long jump was made using coloured salt placed on a little piece of balsa wood. Read more about colouring and playing with sensory salt here.

 The athletes were extremely busy in the gymnasium!

 This guy was obviously showing off!

 The lady gymnast stood on the balance beam with a ball and hoop at the same time- so talented!

 Swinging on the rings! Pop loved to push him on this swing like he was at the park and Cakie soon decided he was better off up-side-down.

 We made a swimming pool with a drop of blue food colouring in water, inside a plastic tub. Cakie made them race up and down in the water but no-one won because “everyone’s a winner in this race!” How very modern!

 Pop thought the weightlifter may also want to score some goals, and he was a pretty accurate shot.

 This guy continued to show off ridiculously! I can only presume he won the gold medal 🙂

 And Pop was very confident that weightlifter would be able to both run and jump while carrying his heavy load! Didn’t he do well?!

I’m so pleased to have found such relevant toys for such a significant event and the play set up has given us lots of opportunities to introduce how the games work and what will be coming up very soon!

Have you got any plans for celebrating the Olympics? Which are your favourite events?

You may also like to see our Olympic salt dough medals!


Learning Links:

  • knowledge and understanding: be aware of significant events in their own lives and the world around them, names of sports and equipment used
  • creative: use figures and objects to represent things during play
  • literacy: storytelling, take on a character and remain in role, narration
Cakie: 3.10
Pop: 2.3
Bean 19 weeks
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Comments

  1. The Iowa Farmer's Wife says

    Oh Anna I just love this post! My husband and I were giggling hysterically at your show-off gymnast! I LOVE those little playmobile gymnasts and the gymnastics equipment!! This is so neat!

  2. Kate says

    What fantastic little people. A great find and your pictures had me giggling. I love the Olympics and will either be up in the middle of the night watching (from Australia) or catching the highlights before bedtime

  3. Anonymous says

    LOVE IT!!!! My Dad has been to the summer Olympics many times and therefore my kids are very interested…I just ordered all that I could…this will be fun!! Thanks for sharing!!

    Sheryl
    solbergfamily5@gmail.com

  4. Gillian says

    I did just this last week and it was brilliant. I love the gymnasts too. It took me a while to track down the pieces here in Canada but worth it. We also made medal podiums from toilet rolls and had a cycle track around the beach volleyball. Next week we will make your salt dough medals to give to the children at our Olympics celebration / British Afternoon Tea party.

  8. Love and Lollipops says

    This post made me smile!! I would love to create something like this for my kiddos. How very special to have the Olympics there – I can’t wait to watch it on the Telly all the way from over here in South Africa 🙂

    Georgia

  12. cshinn says

    I ordered them for my granddaughter and she is enjoying playing with them while watching the Olympics with her mom and dad. Her favorite part of opening ceremonies was Mary Poppins. I should of checked to see if Playmobil had a figure for her.