Do you know you know your maillot jaune from your le maillot blanc? Your King Of The Mountains from your sprinter?
I didn’t because, despite being run since 1903, the Tour de France has largely passed me by – not that I was alive in 1903, even though Freya recently told everyone on the bus that I’m “really old” but you get what I’m trying to say. I’ve seen the odd clip of it on TV, I’ve heard it spoken about (I sat next to the sport department when I worked for my last newspaper for a while) but I haven’t taken that much interest – and I think I’ve been missing out.
This year, Bostik is an official tour partner and the theme of our most recent craft box from Craft Merrily, which we receive as part of our role as a Tots100 Bostik Blogger, is inspired by what has become one of the most important sporting events in the world.
Not knowing much about it, I was a bit flummoxed when it came to ideas for what to make so I did some research and found it is far more interesting that I first thought.
I already knew there was a yellow jersey (for the fastest of each stage and the quickest overall) but my research revealed there is also a green (best sprinter and time trialist), red polka dot (best climber) and white (best young rider) too (apparently there is also a rainbow jersey and that’s before you even get to the team jerseys).
While it was tempting to make a bike with paper plate wheels and a pipe cleaner frame or some handle bar streamers for Freya’s actual bike, I really wanted to do something that made use of the jerseys. Freya has recently started to enjoy noughts and crosses (or “that not angry game” as she first described it, which took some deciphering) and I was thinking about other easy games she might enjoy.
Snap! Of course.
We used:
White, yellow and green card.
Bostik Fine & Wide Glu Pen.
Scissors.
A pencil, red pen and black pen.
Two small pieces of cardboard (to make the templates).
Emoji stickers.
Stage one.
I’m sure there is a much easier way of doing this but because I wanted it to be as interactive as possible for Freya we started by making a square-ish template (7cms by 9cms) and then drawing around it on to white card. We then cut them out. I initially thought we’d make eight squares but that made the game short so we ended up with 16.
Stage two.
I attempted to draw a jersey on a slightly smaller piece of cardboard. After several attempts (who knew it was so difficult?) we used a pencil to draw around it and scissors to cut them out. I cheated a little bit and did several at once.
Stage three.
As it was a warm day we decided to do the rest outside on the communal grass. After adding red polka dots to four of the white jerseys, Freya stuck them all on to the cards using Bostik Glu.
Stage four.
The other side of the card looked a little sad so Freya added emoji faces to represent the expressions of the riders during the race (although I’ll be interested to see if any do actually wink during their ride).
Then it was time to play and I was surprised by how much she enjoyed it. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s an only child or because she’s four but she’s not great at losing (at snap or noughts and crosses). I let her win most times but I think the occasional loss is good for her.
Will you be watching the tour, which starts on July 7th? Or is it an event which largely passes you by?
* Please note: we received a free box of craft materials in return for this post.
After The Rain 