Olympics 2012

Little B is fascinated by the Olympics at the moment. Since hearing about them at swimming, he has been innately curious as to what it’s all about. And since he has DCD, we are also keen for him to see male role models doing a variety of different sports (especially swimming) that aren’t solely based on football, basketball or cricket (which whilst dominant in Australian culture, are things that are not so feasible for Little B sport-wise).

So yesterday, we set about doing a little Olympics crafting before we sat down as a family to watch the opening ceremony.

We made Olympic rings with

Toilet rolls (found here)

And a little hand painting never goes astray (found here)

 Then we made our own Olympic torch (found here)

Using a cheese grater for the pattern in the foil was great. We also watched some footage on youtube so Little B could get the concept of the torch relay. Of course our own relay in the house was then obligatory :-)

Then we sat down to watch the Olympic opening ceremony which we taped. And??? Little B loved it – though it did take a lot of explaining (who Daniel Craig & Mr Bean were, industrialism, the history of music in the UK - you know light topics for a Sunday afternoon LOL).

Now if Little B was a little older (say by the next Olympics), I would also get him to watch Gruen Sweat so he can understand the commerciality of the games as well as the athletics side. I loved the first episode last week and look forward to what else they have to say this week.

We also intend to show him the London 2012 Paralympics at the end of the mainstream games, as I think it’s important for him to understand all facets of sports. There tagline this year is "Inspire a Generation" and I want him to see the amazingness of all abilities and the things that all people can achieve.

In the meantime, we are randomly taping different sports for Little B to watch snippets of – so far it’s been some swimming archery, cycling and rowing. And I cant wait to see what he thinks!!