Little School on the Range: Olympics

The Olympics are such a fun way to incorporate current events into the classroom! From primary grades up to high school, there are so many fun ways to mix the Olympics into your curriculum! The 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo is the perfect way to wrap up the school year or to use as a theme for summer school.

The Olympics can truly be used in all content areas. The summer games are an excellent way to bring current events into the classroom. The Social Studies classroom can get a definite boost from the Olympics. It is such a global current event that all of the world is watching at once. Learning about all of the events is so exciting for students. They love being able to watch the events after learning about them in school. Geography and map skills can easily be incorporated into a unit about the Olympics.

There are so many athletes and historical events that are a part of the Olympics. The Reading/Language Arts classroom can benefit from nonfiction passages about Olympic athletes and the history of the games.

Charts and graphs relating to the Olympics are in interactive way to add the Olympics into the Math classroom. Charts and graphs related to the medal count are easy keep track of on a daily basis. Medal count by country are updated online on a daily basis.

Check out this Olympics 2021 FREEBIE for a nonfiction text and graph relating to the Olympics! These FREE activities can be completed in the classroom OR online!

Looking for a complete no-prep unit on the 2021 Olympics? Check out the complete Tokyo 2021 Olympics Unit.

My students have always loved learning about the Olympics. It’s an event that everyone seems to be interested in. I think the fact that students can take what they’ve learned about the Olympics home to share with their family is a big reason. Students also enjoy watching the Olympics at home and discussing it the next day. There are so many ways to incorporate the Olympics into the classroom. Here are some of my favorite ways!

Social Studies

The Olympics are a great way to talk about “Then and Now.” The first modern day Olympics was over 100 years ago. What was the Olympics like back then? How has it changed over the years? Here are some things to think about:

· Compare the number of events back then and now

· Compare the number of athletes back then and now

· Compare who can compete compared to who could compete then

· Compare the medals of the past to the current medals

· Compare the length of the games from the past years to the current years

· Compare the number of countries (and their medal counts) to the number of countries now competing

There are so many fascinating events in the Olympics! Students absolutely LOVE learning about the various events! I like to show them a presentation about the different events. There are sooo many that it often takes a few class periods to discuss them. We are all familiar with the popular events, but there are some really unique events!

We also cut out fact cards about each event. Each card has a short summary of each event. We placed these in pockets. They could be used in interactive notebooks, but we saved ours for making a lapbook about the Olympics.

The Olympics are also a fun way to learn about geography. We can look at the maps of ancient Greece as well as the current map of Rio.

We use the Olympics to discuss timelines. We discuss how the modern day Olympics has changed over the years. Then we complete an Olympics timeline for practice.

Reading

Below are some books that we have been reading while learning about the Olympics.

We also read some nonfiction reading passages to learn more about the Olympics.

Math

Keeping up with the medal count is a great activity during the Olympics. The medal count is also a super way to practice your data and graphing skills!