Crystal Olympic Rings | Olympic Games Activity for Kids

We are HUGE fans of the Olympic Games! I feel inspired every time I watch the athletes compete and learn their stories. To show our Olympic pride and enthusiasm we made some crystal Olympic rings for kids to hang in our window.

Getting Ready

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To make crystal Olympic rings for kids we gathered the following supplies:

• Pipe cleaners (one each in blue, yellow, black, green, and red)
• Glue gun
• String
• Pencil
• Mug, vase, or jar
• Boiling Water
• Borax – This is an inexpensive ingredient used in many of our science experiments. You can find it either online or at the grocery store in the laundry aisle. Use the leftovers to make slime or a borax crystal snowman.

Make Crystal Olympic Rings

We followed these directions:

• Trim the pipe cleaners so that each one is 5-6 inches long.
• Using the picture above for reference, shape each pipe cleaner into a circle and loop them through each other in the following order: blue, yellow, black, green, red.
• Use a glue gun to attach the rings together at each point they overlap.

• Tie a piece of string to your Olympic rings. You can use string, yarn, or even dental floss if you want. (My Olympic rings were too large to fit vertically into a vase or cup so I arranged them horizontally in a casserole dish. Just make sure the fit into the container without touching the bottom or the sides.)
• Attach the string to a pencil, pen, spoon, or other long object and set aside.
• Fill your jar or vase with boiling water. Add 3-4 Tablespoons of borax per cup of water and stir. It’s okay if some borax settles on the bottom of your container.
• Lower your Olympic rings into the hot water/borax mixture. Make sure they are not touching the sides or the bottom of your container, and that you can get them through the mouth of your container easily.

• Make sure your jar is in a quiet place where it won’t be disturbed. While the crystals are growing you don’t want it to get bumped.
• After a couple of hours you will start to see crystals growing! Leave your mixture overnight for best results.
• Let your borax crystal Olympic rings dry on a paper towel for an hour or so. When dry, pick them up and admire them in the sunlight. You will want to grab a magnifying glass to observe them more closely!
• Hang your crystal Olympic rings in the window or display them elsewhere to show your Olympic spirit!

These crystal Olympic rings are gorgeous as they hang in the window and reflect the sunlight!

What the Olympic Rings Symbolize

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, co-founder of the modern Olympic Games, designed the Olympic Rings in 1912. According to Coubertin, the ring colors with the white background stand for those colors that appeared on all the national flags that competed in the Olympic games at that time. He stated,

… The six colors [including the flag’s white background] combined in this way reproduce the colors of every country without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the tri-colors of France, England, America, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Hungary, and the yellow and red of Spain, are placed together with the innovations of Brazil or Australia, with old Japan, and with new China. Here is truly an international symbol.

More Ways to Use Leftover Borax –>