Olympics/International Sports Themed Events

This week I'm teaching several events related to the Olympics. One lesson is for a small group of preschool students, three for larger groups of preschool students, and two for small groups of elementary students.

Regardless of your overall opinion of the Olympics, they are a great reason to teach children about sports and the countries of the world!

I'd like to share some of the activities I have planned and the resources I've used in case you're planning an Olympics or International Themed lesson.

First, I printed out and laminated Google images of Olympic sports to teach children the sports names. These can be used in any number of ways, e.g.

* charades/ gesture game (guess which sport I'm acting out)

* basketball (say the name of each sport then shoot the ball into the basket)

*dance/stop/pose (free dance to music until the music stops, then strike a pose for the sport name called out)

I also have a few handy educational tools to teach children about the countries of the world, including a large map, a globe beach ball, and a book of the countries, capitals, and flags of the world. I'll have children roll a dice to determine which continent they go to, then move an airplane to a country on that continent. I'll also use small print outs of flags with bowling and ring toss and ask children to try to say the names of the countries they've "knocked over" (in bowling) or thrown a ring onto (ring toss). I purchased a "countries of the world bingo" set as well, and printed out a number of handwriting practice sheets. I'll ask children to practice writing phrases such as:

I'm from Japan.

My favorite sport is ~.

He's/She's from (country).

I hope some of these ideas inspire you in your lesson planning! The pictures below may give you some ideas, too.