World Cup Fever

With the Soccer World Cup being just days away, World Cup Fever has hit our home! We don't have tickets to any matches but plan to enjoy the World Cup anyway. I want the children to have happy memories of it being a fun time in our home. We are after all a host city to this fun event! Everywhere we go, we see flags....on cars, in the shops and even our church has all the flags up. People are wearing their favourite team jerseys and there is an air of excitement out and about.

We found this South African vuvuzela and the kids have had great fun blowing it. I think the neighbours might be tiring of the sound by now! Z loves his top in the South African teams colours!

Yesterday the children cut out mini flags and stuck them on our world map. Each of the 32 teams playing in the World Cup was represented. It was a hands on geography lesson where they had to find the countries themselves. The bigger flags had a different purpose....

Tonight we had some family fun playing a game with the bigger flags of the 32 countries represented. I found these South African flag mint humbugs in a nearby store and whoever got 3 flags right could take a sweetie. Z did really well, scoring the highest. By the end of the evening , the entire family had memorised which flag belongs to which country! Hows that for fun learning!

We then learned some flag "etiquette". A flag is not to be hung upside down unless it is a genuine distress signal. The host countries flag is always positioned in a position of honour: it must be first and to the extreme left when looking at a row of flags. No other flag should be bigger than the host flag.

We stuck our flags along the mantelpiece. The South African Flag in first place of honour, and then as is correct, the rest of the flags in alphabetical order. We all learned so much!

I was very pleased to get some links to some sites regarding the world cup and we will have more fun as we complete some activities on the World Cup. The older two children will be coaching Upward Soccer during the World Cup and Z will be playing. It should be great fun!