Make an Olympic Headband

Make a simple and colorful construction paper headband to show your Winter Olympic pride. Kids can wear it to an Olympics party or while watching the Games on television. Hats are not only a quick and easy way to make the events feel more celebratory, they're also just plain fun to wear! This activity involves cutting, coloring, and gluing, all exercises that will help your child hone his fine motor skills.

What You Need:

• Tape measure (sewing tape measures work best)
• Ruler
• Construction paper
• Printer
• Printer paper
• Scissors
• Crayons, markers, or colored pencils
• White glue or glue stick
• Tape (optional)

What to Do:

1. Measure around your child's head with the tape measure to figure out how long the headband should be.
2. Help your child cut a strip of construction paper about 2 1/2 inches wide and 2 inches longer than the measurement of your child's head. You may need to cut two pieces of construction paper and attach them together with glue or tape to make the strip long enough.
3. Open a word processing program on your computer and ask your child to find a fun blocky font for his headband.
4. Have your child type a fun phrase such as "Vancouver 2010" or "Winter Olympic Champion" or make up one of your own.
5. Make the text 72 points in size and add an Outline effect. To add an Outline effect in Microsoft Word 2007, go to the Home tab, then click on the small arrow icon in the lower right corner of the Font box. The Font dialog box will open; select Outline in the Effects section and click OK. In many other word processing programs you can change font effects through the Format menu.
6. Change the page orientation to landscape. You can do this in Word 2007 by going to the Page Layout tab, clicking on the Orientation button, then selecting Landscape from the drop down menu. In other programs, you can change the orientation by going to Format > Page or File > Page Setup. Go to the help section of your program if you have trouble.
7. Print your page.
8. Have your child color the letters with crayons, markers, or colored pencils. You can use the colors of the Olympic rings (red, blue, yellow, green, and black), or come up with a color scheme of your own.
9. Cut out the letters.
10. Glue the letters to the construction paper headband (the long strip of construction paper you cut out in step 2).
11. Let the glue dry completely.
12. Glue or tape the ends of the headband together so it fits snugly around your child's head.
13. Let the glue dry again, then place the headband on your child's head and get ready to celebrate!