To put the icing on the cake of our Olympics and Paralympics fun of August/September 2012 we have fashioned our own medals for our talented athletes. They have worked hard and deserve some recognition for their perseverance, determination and hard work.
For our medals we have used a plaster mix appropriate for use with children for crafts. We followed the directions on the package. Daddy made the casts with Tristan, and I cringed when I saw they didn’t have the table covered to prevent any accidental damage in the event of a spill. Luckily Tristan did a perfect job in stirring and pouring the mixture.
For the forms, I found some yogurt pots in the cupboard that I was going to discard as they didn’t work for any of the craft ideas I’d tried them with so far. This type of plastic just doesn’t allow paint to stick to it…I cut the pots down to about an inch in height to hold the plaster. After the plaster was poured, a piece of a plastic drinking straw was pressed into place to make a hole where the ribbon would be strung through. Then the plaster was left to dry for a day or two until we were ready to continue on with the project.
It was a warm and sunny day so we set up our supplies outside on the front step. The casts were carefully pressed out of the molds. The design on the bottom of the pots made for a lovely look to the front of the medals! They were a little reminiscent of the Canadian Winter Olympics of 2010 as each medal was a little different from the others. The children painted the plaster gold, silver and bronze (OK, I’ll admit it, 3rd place is actually copper, but it’s what we had in the house). Tristan painted two of the medals, and Kallista carefully painted the third. They were enjoying the painting so I brought out some paper and they had some fun in the sun making pictures for the walls.
When the paint had dried I pulled out the sewing box and we chose some ribbon to thread through our medals. Finally it was time to place some number stickers onto each medal.
Then the big moment arrived and it was time for the medals ceremony…cue the national anthems…
In first place it is Tristan for his effort in the ring toss!
Kallista is second with her determination on the balance beams.
And in third place it is Daddy for his great participation in goal ball!
Well done to everyone! It’ll be an Olympics to remember! The athletes have informed me they would like to take a short but well-deserved break before continuing on with their training and fulfilling the Olympic motto of Faster, Higher, Stronger!
What has been your favourite moment of the London 2012 Olympics or Paralympics? (Mine were seeing the Canadian women’s soccer team win bronze and watching the UK’s Tom Daley (Diving) jumping into the pool with his support team after winning bronze. It isn’t all just the Golden moments that count!
