Try three fun activity ideas from across the curriculum.
An extended Drama activity enables the children to re-create a Torchbearer’s ‘moment to shine’. In ‘Make a film’, the children explore simple techniques from a promotional film about the Torch Relay before drawing up a storyboard for their own film. Finally, they can develop their artistic skills with collage, photography or drawing.
1. Let me introduce you to…
Remind the children that 8,000 people will be chosen to be Torchbearers. All of them will have been nominated by someone else who believes them to be an inspiration.
Talk about inspirational people known to the children. What have they done which makes them stand out?
Watch the video on this link for more ideas:
Who will you nominate for their moment to shine?
Ask the children to work in threes and to decide on a ‘back story’ for someone who has been nominated as a Torchbearer.
Now ask them to divide roles and to stand together; they are preparing for a TV interview. One actor is the TV presenter, one is making the nomination and the third acts as the nominee.
- ‘Let me introduce you to… ’ The TV interviewer presents the guests.
- ‘Why has this person inspired you?’ The person making the nomination speaks out and introduces their partner, and tells the group their inspiring story.
- ‘I would like to carry the Flame because…’ The nominee says a few words, as if in an interview, explaining what the honour means to them. Remind them to stay in the character of their selected image.
- ‘Opening the envelope… ’ The group mime the moment when the nominee opens the envelope and is accepted as a Torchbearer.
- The interviewer asks for some quick reactions to the news from the other two.
- ‘The big day… ’ Ask the group to mime the moments before the nominee accepts the Torch. How will they both be feeling and can they show this to the audience?
- The interviewer could give a commentary on the events as they happen.
- Extend this by asking three groups to perform their mime in sequence with one group handing the baton over to the next.
- Experiment with miming this part in slow motion and asking the children to show their feelings through every part of their body and in their facial expressions.
- Finish with a tableau in which the groups pose for a press photo immediately after their ‘moment to shine’.
Develop this work into a performance which is part of an assembly presentation to the rest of the school on the torch relay.
2. Make a film
Watch some of the promotional videos about the Torch Relay, for example:
Talk about the following:
- How long is the film?
- What was the main point of the film?
- Has music or captions been used?
- Have people been interviewed? Do we see the interviewer?
Now challenge the children to make their own short Get Set film about the Torch Relay called ‘Flame’.
Ask them to convey the excitement of their school friends as they anticipate the Torch Relay coming near to their community. Can they also include some of the following information about the ‘power of three’ which has influenced the triangular design of the Olympic Torch?
- This is the third time the Olympic Games have been staged in London.
- The three Olympic Values are friendship, respect and excellence
- There are three words in the Olympic Motto: ‘swifter, higher, stronger’.
The children can include interviews, in the same way as the promotional films, in which various people have the chance to give their opinion.
The children can begin by drawing up a story board.
Consider posting the films or storyboards to their Get Set blog.
3. Art in motion
Inspire the children with these art activities.
- Younger children can explore the rich colours of the Olympic Flame and golden colours of the Torch itself through paint and collage. How many different colours can be seen in a flame? Where is the flame coolest and hottest, and what does this look like?
- Challenge older children to sharpen up their observational drawing by making close-up studies of hands gripping the triangular shape of the Torch. Develop this further by showing the hands of two Torchbearers as one passes the Flame to the next during the Relay. This theme could also be explored as a digital photography project showing hands from people of all ages as they pass the baton from one to the other.
- Make a mini flip book which shows a Torchbearer moving along and passing the Torch on to the next person.
