1-2-3 Come Do Some More Olympic Activities With Me

Since the Winter Olympics in Sochi, continue through Sunday, February 23rd, I decided to design a few more simple and quick  Olympic activities you can easily fit into your busy day. 

I thought a list of where all of the Olympics have been held (for summer and winter) might be useful, especially if you think of daily trivia questions for your students. 

Click on the link to view/download the Present and Past Locations of the Summer and Winter Olympics.

If you're looking for some educational sites with Olympic "stuff" click on the link to zip on over to Mrs. Jackson's Class blog spot.  She's made a list of over 50 Educational Olympic links.

Ever wonder who designed the official Olympic flag or the meaning behind the 5 interlocking rings?  I did, so I spent some time doing research, so you don't have to. 

A few hours later, I came up with a 2-page list of interesting facts, and included them in the Olympic Flag Information and Craftivities packet.

There's a large black and white picture of the rings for your students to color, or strenghten their finger muscles and give them some fine motor practice, by having them rip & tear 1/2 inch strips of construction paper, and then glue individual pieces to the appropriate rings. 

Whenever my students did our monthly rip and tear activity, I told them to rip piles of colors first, then rub glue over a particular section, and then press the scrap piece down.  This goes so much faster, and is a lot less sticky, than if a child rips one piece at a time and tries to put glue on that little torn piece.

So that students can see what colors to use, I've included a mini poster for you to hang. There's also mini Olympic flags that your kiddos can color and then mount to a Popsicle stick.  Click on the link to view/download the Olympic Flag Information and Craftivities packet.

When I'm designing one idea, a zillion others are also popping into my head.  I have to jot them down or they will be lost.  Such was the case with the game "Rolling For The Gold."

While drawing the black and white rings, I thought it would be fun for students to use them for a coloring game.  Children pick a partner and take turns rolling the dice. 

If they roll a one they color the first ring blue, a roll of a two allows them to color the second ring yellow, and so on. However, if they roll the dreaded six, they lose their turn. 

This is a quick and easy way to review ordinal numbers, as well as a host of other life skills children learn while playing games.

I've included an Olympic rings ordinal numbers anchor chart, an ordinal numbers trace and write worksheet + 2 mini certificates of praise.  Click on the link to view/download the Rolling For the Gold Olympic Dice Game.

I saw another cool Olympic rings idea over at Activity Village.  So that Olympic ring - paper plate painting, is do-able for little ones, here's my extended version for this idea.  So that there's not so much surface to paint, use the small 8-inch plates. 

Have students work in groups of 5.  Demonstrate how to cut a slit and then cut out the center circle inside the plate.   Each student cuts out the center of theirs and then paints it the assigned color. 

You may want to precut the circles for PK kids. (I cut out 2 at a time and it only took me 10 minutes to make 20.)

I like the look of the rings better, if you paint the puffed up back side.   This is also easier for little ones to paint as they don't have to try to fill in the grooves that are on the front.

Set aside to dry.    Have students link their circles according to the appropriate color order. So they don't unlink as you hang them, staple the plates shut after they are linked.   Punch a hole on either end, add a yarn loop, and hang as a high border on your hallway wall.  

The photo is my non-painted sample. Older students can paint both sides and when dry, write vocabulary words that have to do with the Olympics on the back side of their rings.  Suspend these from the ceiling.

A Little Learning For Two has another thing you can do with paper plate rings.  An Olympic ring toss is a quick, easy and fun gross motor activity.   To add some math to the game, give each color a point value. When students are done tossing all 5, they add up their total points.

Students can also make a set of Olympic rings out of pipe cleaners.  Your kiddos can simply make the pipe cleaner links as shown in the photo, or make an Olympic necklace. 

To make "perfect" smaller circles, pre-cut the pipe cleaners so that they are long enough for students to wrap around an empty toilet paper roll to get the circle shape. When they have made all five circles, have them link them up  and then twist the ends to close. 

Tie a piece of yarn at each end so that students can wear their Olympic rings as a necklace.  Adding cut up straws and/or pony beads, is a great fine motor skill and will add to the pizzazz of their necklaces.

Finally, since the Olympics involve lots of timed events, I thought it would be appropriate to make an "It's Time For The Olympics activity packet, to help practice and reinforce analog and digital time to the hour and half hour.   (Common Core State Standard: 1.MD.3)

Run off the Olympic Rings clock template on white construction paper or card stock.  I've included one in color as well as one in black and white.  Print the clock faces and digital time boxes on glossy white photo paper.  Trim and glue to the Olympic rings clock page. 

You now have a dry erase board, as a dry erase marker can be easily rubbed off of the glossy photo paper!  This is a quick, easy and fun way to whole-group assess. 

Call out a time; students draw the hands on their clock and record the digital time in the box; when they are done, they hold up their paper.  You can see at a glance who's correct. 

I've included four worksheets for more practice or assessing, plus a certificate of praise in the form of an Olympic time bookmark.

Beside using the pattern as an assessment tool, you could also punch a hole in the center and add hands if you wanted to have a few clock manipulatives as well.  Click on the link to view/download the Olympic  Telling Time packet.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  I hope you can stop by tomorrow, as I'll be finishing up with Olympic FREEBIES and moving on to FREE President's Day activities.

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” -Unknown

1-2-3 Come Do Some Olympic Activities With Me

Are you and your students following the Olympics? I'm a sucker for anything that gets a child's attention and motivates them to want to learn.  I think The Olympics are a great platform for that.

Even if you don't have time to do an involved unit, or big theme day, you can still sprinkle in a few Olympic activities, so that your students can get some social studies and current events into their day.  

An easy way to do that is to add these Olympic Counting Puzzles to your math center.  They will help your kiddo's practice counting forwards, backwards, and by 10's to 100. 

You can also print off one for each child to cut up and then glue onto a sheet of construction paper.  Remind them to leave a little gap in-between each piece for an interesting mosaic work of art.  Click on the link to view/download the Olympic Puzzles.

Another quick way to include the Olympics in your day, is by recording any medals that your country has won, by keeping a tally sheet. 

The Winter Olympics in Sochi has an official website; click on the link and it will take you to a list of countries who have won medals, and how many of each kind they have won.

I've included a recording sheet for the United States, as well as a generic one that can be used by any other country.  (A friendly shout out to my frequent visitors from Canada, England, Australia, Germany and China, who are the top 5 countries that visit often, as well as 67 other countries!)  Click on the link to view/download the Olympic Medal Tally Sheets. 

While doing research about the Olympics on the web, I found a very helpful site "Winter Olympics Through The Years."  It has some great background information, as well as a ton of info from the 1924 Olympics through the current Winter Olympics.  Click on the link to check it out. 

Since most of your students will have seen some winter as well as summer Olympic activities, why not have them do an Olympic Venn diagram? I've designed 6 for your students to choose from.  Venn diagrams are a quick and easy way for students to compare and contrast something. Click on the link to view/download the Olympic Venn Diagram packet. 

I thought a list of all of the  Winter Olympic sports, as well as a list of Summer Olympic Competitions would be helpful.  Students can look up a sport and write a factual report, or they can add these to a sports dictionary and define each one, or simply use the lists to make crossword puzzles and word searches.

I've included a sport reporting page as well as a cover for a sports dictionary if you choose those options.   Click on the link for the Winter & Summer Olympics Sports Packet. 

Another easy idea is to have a few quick activities available "just for fun." 

Use them for those early finishers, or tuck them in your sub folder.  Click on the link to grab the connect the dot Olympic Rings.

For a quick Olympic art center, have students make their version of Rachel Whiteread's 2012 London Olympics poster.  Spill the 5 Olympic colors onto small paper plates.  Using an empty toilet paper tube (one for each color) students dip and press, making colorful circles all over their paper 'til they are satisfied with their design.  

Besides activities that feed the mind, I always had some sort of special snack that related to the interesting things that we were studying.

I had some extremely creative parents every year, that were more than willing to whip together whatever crazy thing I discovered on the web.  Their delicious edibles saved me time and money, and really added to our celebrations. 

If you do that sort of thing too, I found these yummy Olympic sugar cookie rings over at The Decorated Cookie.  Click on the link to pop on over.

Another easy Olympic snack idea are these cute "torches."  Simply fill sugar cones with popcorn. 

These neat treats were created by Kami. Click on the link to check out her blog article.

 I have a lot more Olympic FREEBIES to share, (pop by tomorrow) but I don't want this to get too long.   Thanks for visiting. Feel free to PIN away.

"The healthiest competition occurs when average people win, by putting above average effort in." -Collin Powell