Pool Noodle Olympic Ring Painting

We've always enjoyed the Olympics, but this year the kiddos are especially fascinated by them. Big Brother has been asking to watch them all week! On top of watching them, this past week we've been exploring some different ideas and projects for "Olympic Week" in our Simple Summer Theme series.

The other afternoon I wanted something fun to do that wouldn't take a lot of set up and was trying to think of a way we could create the Olympic Rings.

Although I'd seen the toilet paper roll ring prints, I realized that pool noodle pieces would also make great tools for printing circles!

I first spotted pool noodle painting on Pinterest years ago when Big Brother was a toddler. When pool noodles are cut into pieces they are a great size for little hands to hold and paint with. We've enjoyed it in the past and I knew we had an old pool noodle around that I could cut up.

I usually cut up our pool noodles with a serrated bread knife on a cutting board. For this activity I cut five pieces off of the pool noodle, about 3 inches each. I got out our washable poster paint - one color for each of the Olympic Rings (red, yellow, green, blue, and black.) We put the paint onto small, styrofoam plates.

We had been reading a magazine with an Olympic connection, so the kids used the image of the rings in the magazine to create their Olympic Ring painting. 

To paint, kids would dip the pool noodle piece into the paint and move it around to make sure the bottom of the piece was evenly coated. They then pressed the paint onto the paper. 

They repeated the process with each of the colors, and they staggered the rings to make them look like they overlapped. (Although Big Brother was more into that part, Little Brother's rings were a little more spread out.) 

We also read a little more about the Story of the Olympic Rings by using this information from Planet Smarty Plants. 

This was a quick and fun way to create a Olympic Ring Painting! In the future it might even be cool to try printing the rings on to fabric or t-shirts. 

After creating our rings, I discovered that I Can Teach My Child! also has painted the Olympic Rings using Pool Noodles. They have some great tips on how to cut the pool noodle which you can read about in their post. 

Now we just have to decide what to do with our Olympic Ring paintings. What might you use them for?