Pool Noodle Hurdles

Pool noodles – there are so many things that you can do with them!  They’ve gone from £5-8 each two years ago down to £1 each now so we’ve been exploring some of the things that we can craft them into.  After Kallista had so much fun turning her DIY croquet set into hurdles, I thought some pool noodle hurdles would be a good way to start.

With the Summer Olympics approaching, this is also a timely physical activity for the kids to try. They had so much fun four years ago with our home made Olympics. They’ve recently watched the kids at a nearby school practising for their annual sports day and although they had a fancy schmancy metal rack to hold their own pool noodles, we didn’t need anything quite so elaborate for our purposes.

A couple of brightly coloured (are there any other kind?) of pool noodles, some chopsticks, and a utility knife were all that we needed.

Being very precise with my cutting and measuring, I used the length of a sidewalk block as my guide and cut the pool noodles into two equal halves (strangely, that was the way it turned out – who knew sidewalk blocks were perfect for measurement?).

Then the disposable chopsticks were broken into their single sticks (we love to use chopsticks for crafts and activities) and a chopstick was pressed about halfway into each noodle a few centimetres from each end.

Then the ‘hurdle’ was put into position by pressing the other end of the chopsticks into the ground.  Be sure to hold the chopstick below the pool noodle to put it into the ground, don’t press on the pool noodle as you don’t want the chopstick to poke out of the top of the noodle.

Line up your hurdles and create a start and a stop and let the kids have fun running over them (or around them).  Yes, Kallista loves to not only jump over the hurdles, but also to run around them from side to side up one way and back the other.  I love to see my children having fun while keeping fit.

Tristan isn’t as good as his sister when it comes to the hurdles, but he wins in other areas, so it makes a good balance, and keeps the competition going.

Whether the kids are great or not when it comes to physical activity, I love to see them have fun!  There’s no need for expensive or complicated equipment to create a new game in your own backyard, just have a look around and get inspired.  And if your kids are a little young for this yet, check out these great toddler Olympics.