The beauty of using the Olympics in the classroom is that there is built-in excitement. Subjects that students can find boring – fraction, research, graphing – are suddenly made fresh and fun using the real-life from the Games. Below you’ll find a few ways we incorporate the Olympic games into our classroom.
Get this bulletin board and activity book here
Track the Medal Count
Create a bulletin board where your students can track the medals earned by each country. You can choose to track the top countries or all of them. Look up the medals earned the day before and then have students add the medals to your board and update the total count.
What can you do with this data?
- Fractions: What fraction of your home country’s medals are gold? Silver? Bronze?
- Graphing: Graph your countries medals by day, type, and sport.
- Percentages: Take your fraction data and convert it to a percent. What percent of athletes in each game are winners?
Get this bulletin board and activity book here
Research the current games
There are so many wonderful topics to research.
- Mascot
- Logo
- Location
- Countries participating
Research Athletes
“Adopt a Country”
Have students pick a country to follow during the Olympics. They should research facts about their country, discover and follow top athletes, and track their country’s accomplishments at the games.
Hold your own Olympic Games
Have a math Olympics in your classroom. Students compete in games that test their math and measuring skills.
Have an opening and closing ceremony as a class
Have a parade, eat food from different countries, watch footage (live or recorded) from the actual ceremony. Have fun!
Olympic Books
Olympig
Who Was Jesse Owens
Finding the Edge
G is for Gold Medal
Snowman Paul at the Winter Olympics
Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman
Nadia, The Girl Who Couldn’t Sit Still
The Boy’s on the Boat
Yes, I Can!: The Story of the Jamaican Bobsledding Team
What Are the Summer Olympics?
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