Enjoying the World Cup with Twinkl Resources

The World Cup starts next week, and it will definitely be dominating our household television for the next few weeks! I really like to help the children get into the spirit of big sporting events, whether that's by decorating the house, doing some crafting, or enjoying other related activities. Today I'm sharing some of the resources that Twinkl have produced to help get children involved in the World Cup celebrations.

If you don't have a Twinkl subscription, in the second half of this post you can find links to some fab free resources that just require a free Twinkl account to download!

I started our World Cup planning by printing a World Cup Wall Chart. This lovely colourful poster has spaces to write in the scores and then follow the teams through to the finals. I've stuck it on the door to the living room so we can keep it updated as we watch the games!

If you want to up your World Cup decoration game, Twinkl have lots of different options. You can print some cheerful World Cup Bunting (subscriber resource) or even download a World Cup Display Pack  (subscriber resource) which includes lettering, banner, posters, bunting and more - fantastic for decorating a classroom or role play area and perfect if you are hosting a World Cup themed party.

I've also printed some World Cup Countries Cards (subscriber resource) which are a great way to learn about the flags of the different countries taking part.

When it comes to football and World Cup related activities, Twinkl have plenty to choose from. Harry really loves the longer mystery games that Twinkl has produced with a variety of different themes. In the Football Maths Mystery Game (subscriber resource) which is aimed at KS2 children you need to work out who has sabotaged a team's football kits by narrowing down a long list of suspects using maths activities. There are lots of different clues to solve based around telling the time, working out the perimeter of shapes and more and it will keep him busy and entertained for ages.

He also loves a crossword, so I've printed him the World Cup Crossword (subscriber resource) which will also teach him a few facts about football and the tournament.

For Mia I've printed some Football Colour by Number sheets (subscriber resource) which she loves, and she also enjoys a word search so I found the World Cup Word Search (subscriber resource) which has three different levels so you can choose the most appropriate one for your child. These activities would all be great for the classroom to keep on hand when you need something to fill a few minutes.

If you don't have a paid subscription, Twinkl also offer a number of great free printable resources, and you just need to create a free account to access them.

Here are some of my favourite free football themed resources:

Football World Cup bookmarks - These football themed bookmarks make a great gift - they'd be perfect for party bags if you are hosting a football themed party or event for children.

Design a Football - This would be a fun activity for children to work on while watching the football.

Football World Cup Players Colouring Pages - Another great activity to keep children entertained while the football is on and great to keep on hand for a football themed event.

Football Word Mat - I love the Twinkl word mats, they are great for introducing new themed vocabulary to children and helping them to spell the more tricky words.

Football Page Borders - A lovely way to display your child's football themed writing or artwork.

I hope that you have lots of fun watching the World Cup with your children!

I'm a Twinkl blogger and have been provided with a subscription in exchange for sharing the resources on my blog and social media.

Collage England flag craft

With the football World Cup approaching, here in England our flag is already very visible out and about. We're very lucky really to have such a simple flag for our country that is easy to recognise and to replicate! So we made a simple collage England flag collage to hang up in the house.

The flag of England is the St. George's cross - a red cross on a white background. The England flag forms a part of the Union Flag, or the Union Jack. You can read all about the history of the flag here - Flag of England.

Our collage England flag is a simple colour matching and sticking activity. First I went through my collection of craft and collage materials and picked out anything red that I could find. I gathered red pom poms, feathers, lollipop sticks, pipe cleaners, scraps of paper, ribbon, stickers, foam shapes, shredded paper, sequins and lots more, and put them all together in a bowl.

I prepared the base flag beforehand, using a large sheet of white paper and forming the cross by gluing down strips of red paper. I wanted to have the red cross marked out so that it would be obvious where to place the collage materials, and also to make a nice background. Originally I was going to paint the cross, but I could imagine the paint mixing with the glue and smearing all over the white, so I wanted to keep it a nice crisp edge. It was a very quick craft to set up.

Then I let the children loose with PVA glue and the red bits and pieces. This was a really great craft for all of us to do together. Harry put a bit more thought into the placement of his objects. Mia just stuck them down, but she's now old enough to understand that she was only sticking them on the red parts of the flag. The size of the flag was large enough for them to both work on it together without getting in each other's way. I took responsibility for a generous sprinkling of red glitter at the end!

Now it's all dry it's ready to be hung up somewhere on the wall, probably next to our World Cup poster!

We are planning lots of other crafting ready for the World Cup. You might also like my World Cup hama bead designs which you can find over at Red Ted Art.

Crafting with children to celebrate a football tournament

Not long to go now until the football World Cup 2014! The first game is on Thursday, 12th June 2014, and everyone in this family is very excited. This year is the first year that Harry can really show an appreciation for football, so my husband is very keen for me to come up with some crafts and activities to help develop that interest.

To kick us off (pun fully intended!) we made a World Cup 2014 poster together. I found a large piece of paper and printed off several resources that I found on-line. I included a blank world map, a list of the fixtures, and a list of the 32 teams by group. I cut out the name of each country and then helped Harry to draw a line from the name to that country on the map. Then Harry coloured in the map and stuck some pictures and stickers all around.

The pictures that Harry cut out to decorate the poster all come from a spare Panini World Cup 2014 sticker album. They have been giving these out for free in many supermarkets across the UK so it's worth trying to get hold of one if you want to do some football related crafting. You can usually find them in a special cardboard display along with the other magazines and we've seen plenty around. You can also find lots of similar images on-line that you can print out.

Of course Panini are  making their money from the stickers not the albums (even if you had no duplicate stickers it would cost £64 to complete an album!). But my son has been having a lot of fun with the Panini Online Sticker Album and I'd definitely recommend giving it a go if you have football mad children. I'm not exactly sure of the details as it's been my husband that's been helping him with it, but do I know that you can earn plenty of virtual stickers and swap them with other players across the world. He's managed to almost complete his album in a fairly short time and has really enjoyed it.

If you are looking for more football related craft, you might like to make a collage England flag to support the team, or have a go at making flags from some of the other countries taking part. 

Wembley Stadium Photo by Mitch Rosen via Unsplash

Euro 2012 and our flag craft

Originally I wanted to do a flag craft to tie in with the Olympics. But, with over 200 nations taking part, that seemed a little ambitious. The Euro 2012 football tournament seems to have crept up a bit, sandwiched between the Jubilee and Olympics, but with a smaller number of countries taking part I thought that making 16 flags would be a lot more manageable.

I had intended to draw out all the flags myself, but a quick Google search found these fab flag printables from Activity Village which were perfect. I printed them all out, and we set to painting them. I used an atlas for reference, which was also an opportunity to have a chat with Harry about the different countries and look at some maps. I'm not sure how much he took in, but I'm laying the foundations! Then we looked at each one individually and I got him to work out which colours they needed to be. He surprised me with his attention span, he actually painted all the flags (he was a bit daunted by Greece, but gave it a good go).

They looked nice when they were done, but because we only used watercolour paint they needed to be blinged up a bit. I delved into my craft stash and pulled out the collage baskets, sequins, glitter paint and glitter, and some bits left over from a craft kit that we've been working with. We threw glue about for a bit, and then after an impatient wait for everything to dry I laminated the flags so that they were a bit sturdier (and so that we weren't showered with glitter every time that we took them out).

As for what to do with them now, there are lots of possibilities for games to play with them. I'm not sure that we're quite ready for actually learning the names of the countries yet, but we could try simpler ones like matching flags with the same colours or patterns. I will be talking about the countries as we look at the flags though, just trying to get across the idea that the world is made up of lots of different countries. It's also a really good way for me to learn some of the flags myself, as I am by no means an expert!

We are very interested in travel and geography as a family, so this is definitely a topic that I want to concentrate on with Harry, in fact I've put together a few ideas for teaching young children about geography here.