It’s hard not to love the Olympics. When people work so hard to reach the highest levels of their sport – that’s something worth cheering for. It’s great opportunity to to remind kids how much practice and work it takes to be “the best” and that no one wins every time.
Read about the history of the Winter Olympics in these leveled reading articles. The same information is written at three different reading levels so that students can get the same information and participate in class discussions and activities, but they’re reading text at their own reading level.
Once students have read about the Winter Olympics and about some of the events held there, take advantage of any snow on the ground and hold some winter events of your own:
- Make the Biggest Snowball Competition (Decide whether the winner should be determined by height, circumference or weight)
- Snow Hurdles (Build a row of short snow ridges and race over them.)
- Snowball Targets (Make a big target on the ground and have students make and throw snowballs at the target. Have them measure how far each lands from the center.)
- Have students create some events of their own!
Students can also track medal counts or follow and report the progress of chosen Olympic athletes.
Have students research how some of the more tricks-based events are scored, such as Snowboard Slopestyle, which is making its Olympic debut. Then have students score recorded performances and compare their scores to what the judges actually gave the athletes.
