The U.S. Olympic team is doing great so far this Olympic season! There are still 13 days left to cheer on your favorite athletes! You can start by making this fun gymnastics craft with simple materials you probably already have at home! This project may require help from an adult for the cutting and gluing! Kids can work on fine motor skills by writing and drawing on their gymnast!

Materials Needed:

Popsicle Sticks
Exacto Knife
Thick Paper (like cardstock)
Coloring Utensils (markers, crayons, colored pencils etc)
School Glue
Gynast Leotard Printable (print here)
A Face Photo (See Photos at End of Series)

Instructions:

Start by printing and cutting out the shape of your leotard. Next, cut about a quarter off one end of each popsicle sticks with the Exacto knife. You will generally just need to make an incision on each side with the knife and then use your hands to snap the end piece off. Doing this will ensure that the ends don’t hang too far off the paper.

Next, you’ll want to have your gymnast decorate their leotard! If you have a boy gymnast, cut out a pair of shorts from scrap paper (like the photo above) and have those get decorated as well! For the boy, I cut the bottom portion off of the leotard as well. It might be a good idea to show your little artist some photos of Olympic gymnast’s one pieces so they can get an idea of what they may want theirs to look like. Gymnasts often wear very colorful and vibrant (not to mention sparkly) suits. If you’re up to it, bring out the glitter as well!

You can either draw a balance beam close to the bottom of the page or rings from the top OR if you don’t want to attempt drawing, you can print photos and glue them to the cardstock. (It might be a bit harder to find photos that will match the size of your mini gymnast!) I ended up free handing both the beam and the rings.

Glue your popsicle sticks onto the paper in the position you’d want your gymnast to be in. Make sure you check to make sure your leotard and/or shorts will cover the ends of the sticks! I put mine upside down to look like she’s doing a flip on the balance beam. The boy version has his arms extended out and legs straight down so his shorts will cover his legs. Glue your leotard and/or shorts to the top of the sticks when you’re ready.

The last steps involve decorating the gymnastics project! Kids can either draw a head or you can help them cut out a photo of the themselves and glue it to the spot where a head would go! Give your child some artistic freedom to draw a background or write some phrases on their sheet!