Teaching About the Summer Olympics Through Reading

I LOVE the Olympics!  I have always loved the Olympics, and I get very excited when it's an Olympic year.  The summer Games are my favorite, especially the gymnastics and swimming.  The Olympics is also a high-interest topic for students.  The summer Games are a perfect theme for the end or beginning of a school year, and it's a great theme for summer school, as well.

When I have a theme that I'd like to teach but is not in my curriculum, I always start with guided reading.  I am very lucky to have a Reading A-Z subscription through my school district.  On the Reading A-Z site, there are several different books that are leveled and perfect for an Olympic theme.  My favorite is titled Summer Olympic Events and is available in levels H, K, & Q.

In my Gold Medal Literacy resource, I have two mini books that I also use: The Summer Olympics and Where in the World is Rio de Janeiro?  They're perfect, because students can highlight and write directly in their books.  The nice thing about those little books and the A-Z readers is that they come with comprehension activities and worksheets.  My Gold Medal Literacy packet is loaded with word word and writing activities that can help you run a mini-unit on the summer Olympics.  I used it during the last week of school, and my kids had a blast!  They're definitely excited for the Games in August.

You can find my Gold Medal Literacy resource here.

Over the years, I've collected Olympics trade books as I've found them.  They are kind of few and far between, at least the good ones are.  I've linked up a few of my favorites and a few on my wish list. (These are Amazon affiliate links.)

What Are the Summer Olympics? I LOVE this series!

Magic Treehouse: The Hour of the Olympics- Excellent for guided reading or as a read aloud.

Ancient Greece and the Olympics: Nonfiction Companion

G is for Gold Medal- I love the variety of information in this book.  It's not a great read aloud, but it is perfect to add to a themed bookshelf.

Elympics- This one looks really cute, although I do not own it.

How to Train with a T.Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals- I think this one looks so cute!

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman- There are tons of great biographies about Olympians, and this one is one of my favorites.  Excellent book!

Olympia the Games Fairy- My girls love these fairy books, so this is a good one to add to the bookshelf.  It is always chosen.

...and if you're looking for some more fun ideas for teaching about the Olympics.  Click on the photos to access the link.

(image and link to The Chaos and the Clutter)

(image and link to Classy Mommy)

(image and link to Fun-a-Day)

My summer Games math resource on TPT. 

 Math and Literacy together!

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A Taste of Pennsylvania

Last week we wrapped up our unit on Pennsylvania.  It was so much fun.  The kids loved learning about our state, and I really loved teaching it.  Science and social studies is, by far, my favorite thing to teach.  To culminate the unit, I hosted a PA foods day, which we called A Taste of Pennsylvania.

PA has so many unique foods, especially the PA Dutch foods.  We had whoopie pies, cheese steak sandwiches, Hershey's chocolate, Turkey Hill drinks, PA Dutch birch beer, mushrooms, sweet Lebanon bologna, Herr's potato chips, Utz potato chips, and TastyKakes.  All of those foods are either grown or manufactured in Pennsylvania.  Fun fact- Central Pennsylvania is nicknamed "The Snack Belt" due to all of the snack food companies located in Lancaster, York, and Berks Counties.  Pennsylvania is also the mushroom capital of the world!

I used a super simple set up in my classroom, which led to easy clean up.  I grabbed some plastic trays and bowls from Dollar Tree and covered the tables with butcher paper in our state colors, yellow and blue.  I labeled each of the foods on the butcher paper.   My parent volunteers helped me cut up each of the dishes into bite sized pieces and arranged them on the trays.  You could definitely do this the night before if you're short on time. 

The kids were split into groups of four, and they rotated around the tables, trying each of the foods.  I asked that they tried everything, even if it was for a no-thank you bite.  They really did try everything with very little grumbling!  They were surprised at what they actually did like.  The students rated each of the foods that they tried using a scale.  You can grab it here. 

After we finished our taste testing, we gathered together.  Students took a moment to rate their top three favorite foods.  We then used that data to created a tally graph.  It was the perfect tie into my graphing unit, which we had just begun the day before.  Later in the day, we used the same data to create bar graphs.

A Taste of PA was seriously so fun!  It was the perfect end to our PA unit.  We spent about 4 weeks learning about Pennsylvania history, geography, and symbols.  I used my Pennsylvania Lap Book and Interactive Notebook for the unit.  It was perfect, as my students are loving interactive notebooks this year.  I don't have any food allergies in my room, so that kept things pretty easy.  I had all of my food donated by families.  I use Sign Up Genius for parties and donations.  I kept it simple, but organized, and it all went really smoothly.  I can't wait to do it again next year!   Let me know if you give it a try!

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Five for Friday- Nov. 6th

Hellooooo, Friday!

After a super busy but long week, I'm linking up with Doodle Bug's Teaching for....

 

 We began our Pioneers unit in social studies this week.  Today I taught a lesson on Davy Crockett.  At the end of our lesson, we did a directed drawing of Davy Crockett.  How cute are these little guys?!?!  Every time we draw, I'm blown away by the talent in my classroom.  In addition to some things I already had, I used this fabulous freebie by KinderGals. My kiddos rocked the was/could/had chart!

Last week, I wrapped up our unit on the skeletal system just in time for Halloween.  I planned a bones party for the kids, and they LOVED it!  We made these cute little skeleton cupcakes and q-tip skeletons at our party. 

Going right along with the Pioneer theme, my grade level took our annual field trip to the Landis Valley Farm Museum in Lancaster, PA.  It's a pioneer village.  The kids had a fabulous time experiencing life as a pioneer.  The wagon ride was their favorite part.  Those gentle giants, Ben and Maude, were so sweet. 

Today I ordered a kit from Oriental Trading to make our own class quilt.  I'm so excited to do this project again.  I haven't done it in a few years.  The supplies were a little pricey, but the markers last for a while.  I love how the quilts turn out, and the kids get so proud of them.  I can't wait to see all 6 of them from our 6 second grade classes hanging together. 

 

 This past weekend, we went to my cousin's wedding.  It was the first time (I think) that we've had both of our kids at wedding.  They LOVED the dancing!  Julia would not get off the dance floor, and she wanted to dance with her little brother all night long.  She got a little miffed when another little girl wanted to dance with him.  Haha!  My family and I were loving it.  

So, there you have it, 5 random details of my week.  Click over to Doodle Bug's to see who else linked for for Five for Friday! Thanks for stopping by!

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Fall Into Savings Sale!

It's fall y'all!  Fin-a-lly!  Bring on the boots, crisp weather, puffer vests, and pumpkin spice lattes (ehh, Diet Cokes)!

Along with a few of my friends, I'm throwing a 20% off sale Sept. 18-20 on all of my products.  You can check out all of our sales linked up with Mrs. Dailey's Classroom and Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten. 

My second graders have been working their little tails off on addition and subtraction facts this month, and they are going to be so excited to play Boo Bump next week.  This is an excellent, low prep, fun game to practice both addition and subtraction facts up to 18.  I love having a set of Bump game boards on hand for early finishers and to add to math centers.

In social studies, we've been studying citizenship and will later study voting.  This set of comprehension passages teaches about the 3 branches of government- Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.  The passages cover the basic facts and roles of each branch in addition to the role of the President, Congress, Supreme Court and Supreme Court House, Cabinet, and Voting.  This is an excellent way to integrate literacy and social studies. Pick up a copy in my TPT store!

I hope you pick up a few good things during our sale.  Thanks to Mrs. Plemons and Mrs. Dailey for hosting the sale! 

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