Using the Olympics as a Teaching Tool

The 2012 Olympics offer a chance not only to learn about the host city, England, but also about the countries who are participating. It presents a unique way to study these countries while getting into the spirit of the games. Students can pick a country, create the flag, learn about the athletes who will represent that country, and present interesting facts about the culture of the people.

Students could also research about past Olympics and present their findings on how many medals and in which event their country did well. Who has hosted before? Who has never hosted? And, why that might be? With over 200 nations expected to participate, many are not well-known. It is a perfect opportunity to search for these nations and learn about their people. Watching the opening ceremonies together gives students a fantastic opportunity to pause and locate a country, perhaps placing a pin as each one is presented.

The Olympic Games present a unique and creative way for teachers to teach their students about their world and how we all come together in the spirit of competition. Finding Olympic teaching materials along with other related teaching resources to support this unit study is very simple. With kits and online worksheets that can be reproduced, you will find many Olympic teaching ideas to support any level of education.

Olympic Teaching Ideas

The countdown has begun for the London 2012 Olympics, and Pencil Street has great Olympic teaching ideas for teachers who can help spread the excitement for this year’s games. Teach students about how their bodies work during sports, movement and rest. Or cover the history of the Olympics, exploring the rivalry between the Spartans and Athenians.

Students can also learn about the meaning behind the Olympic rings, as well as some of the famous London landmarks the world will see during the media coverage of the games.

Beyond history, students may also look at health risks associated with mass sport events like the Olympics, as well as the carefully planned security measures taken for the event, and for the torch-bearers carrying the Olympic flame.

Pencil Street resources are classroom-ready-to-go. Our extensive collection includes worksheets, activity plans and classroom wall displays, created to support teaching activities for The Early Years, KS1 and KS2.

For more information, visit www.pencilstreet.org.

Olympic Teaching Resources

Since our blog about the Olympics,  released in January this year, we have developed so many Olympic teaching resources to support the Games. Boy have you teachers been downloading them fast!  

There are just over 60 resources so far and we aim to have at least 100 by June. With the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics this year,  we are spoilt for choice.

We have also developed many more Early Years Olympic worksheets since January, as many of you requested and are due to release the classroom displays in the next few days. 

Pencil Street will continue to develop resources right up until the end of June as there is such a wealth of great material to choose from to bring this topic to life for the primary school classrooms. 

Pencil Street is a ‘pay-for’ professional site, but we have released a number of resources for free to support teachers/parents who do not want to subscribe to our other resources. Thank you to everyone who has provided so many ideas and taken the time to request specific resources.

Dave

www.PencilStreet.org

Olympic Worksheets

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad are due to take place in London from 27 July to 12 August 2012.

The development of the Pencil Street teaching resources covering the Olympic Games started in September 2011, with the clear aim to provide quality Olympic teaching resources, rich in learning content for primary school classrooms.

Helping teachers by providing Olympic worksheets, which are cross-curricular and easily slotted into the timetable, but also fun in content was no small task.  Resources include and are not limited to:

• Olympic history worksheets
• Olympic geography worksheets
• Olympic maths worksheets
• Olympic comprehension literacy worksheets
• Olympic art and design activities

Pencil Street will also be providing Paralympic resources which will be available on the Pencil Street website during March 2012.

Lucy Sutton

The Pencil Street Design Team

www.pencilstreet.org