The Winter Olympics is a great reminder that we are all global citizens. Beginning Thursday, February 8, 2018, the Winter Olympics provides a great jumping point to integrate real world events into your curriculum no matter the subject area. Following are classroom ideas and resources that can integrate within your curriculum.
Assign groups of your students to be committee chairs for each of the 15 sporting events. Have them research the sport, its history, different types of competitions, and “be in charge” of daily updates as it relates to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Make a copy of this Winter Olympic Tracker, and project for all to view. Ask the “committees” that represent each sport for medal updates and record accordingly. Be sure to make a copy of the spreadsheet.
Here are a few more ideas of ways you can integrate the excitement of the Olympics into you classroom….. -create a daily newscast of olympic updates -research and creatively present on a little known country that is competing -have a bulletin board with a world map, push pins of the countries that are competing, along with summary information about that country provided by the students -analyze the results on the spreadsheet, are certain sporting events dominated by a particular country? Can students develop a theory as to why this might be?
The Winter Olympic website is a great resource and well organized.
These are just a few ideas, I am sure you have more. Enjoy the Olympics and all that it has to offer!