Celebrate The Games With A Medal Craft For Kids

Oh, how we love the Olympic Games! From the moment the Olympic torch bursts into flames at the opening ceremony, we’re obsessed. We love the skill and competition, and the feeling of national pride that takes over our country. And of course we love those gold, silver and bronze medals placed around the necks of our favourite young athletes.

Every morning, when the hooligans arrive at my daycare, they chatter excitedly about the events they watched the evening before and the thrills and spills of the dedicated participants.

On any given day, the kids know how many medals Canada has won and they engage in Olympic-inspired games and competitions throughout the day, each one ending with a traditional medal ceremony.

Typically, we use my sons’ old hockey medals for these ceremonies, but today we thought it would be fun to make our own Olympic medals that resemble the gold, silver and bronze medals that an Olympic athlete would receive on the podium.

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Let me show you how we made them so your little Olympians can have a set to wear while watching the games, or to award each other with when they’re participating in their own make-believe Olympic activities.

You Will Need:

• cardboard
• aluminum foil
• gold, silver and copper-coloured paint
• paintbrushes
• pencil and scissors
• black permanent marker
• hole punch
• ribbon
• clear tape

To make our medals, we cut out three cardboard circles. We traced around a small bowl to get circles that were perfectly shaped. You’ll want to use cardboard that’s a bit thick for your medals. We tore the edges off a cardboard grocery box to make ours.

Next, the kids wrapped their circles in a piece of aluminum foil, making sure the front sides of their medals were nice and smooth. They may need to secure the foil on the back side with a piece of tape, but if they crunch their foil tight, it will stay in place.

Then we gave the foil a coat of metallic craft paint. The foil shining through the paint really allowed our medals to shimmer in the light.

The kids dried their painted medals with the hair dryer, then they used the marker to decorate them. 

Finally, punch a hole through the top of your medal and string your ribbon through. We now have first, second and third place medallions to award the gold, silver and bronze finalists in our pretend Olympic events.

Let the games begin!