Homeschooling Through The Summer 2012 Olympic Games

The Summer Olympic Games are definitely an exciting time for most people! It’s so much more than gymnastics and swimming, or whatever your favorite sport to watch happens to be. Each new location for the summer or winter olympics provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the country’s culture surrounding the games. From July 27 to August 12, 2012, the Summer Games will be happening in London, England. Will you be watching? What do you already know about them? What do you want to want to learn about them? Sounds like a fun project to me! I think we will start out with a viewing of “Chariots of Fire” and a discussion to follow.

Project Britain

Project Britain and the 2012 London Olympics provides an excellent opportunity to engage students all round the world in learning about Britain and the countries within (England, Scotland and Wales). There are some suggested activities and ideas for exploring the theme across the curriculum. The website has things that will interest kids and adults alike.

Teaching English

Teaching English has free teaching resources based around the London 2012 Games. There are lesson plans and activities on themes such as the Olympic and Paralympic sports and values. Each week they add a new resource. The website is dedicated to teaching people of foreign language to speak English (British spellings), but the worksheets and activities are still good for lesson plans.

Australian Olympic Committee

Australian Olympic Committee provides this thorough resource for the London 2012 Olympics. It is produced by the Australian Olympic Committee in consultation with teachers and educational advisors. The resource contains over 60 primary cross-curriculum lesson plans and student handouts themed around the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England across lower, middle, and upper elementary grades as well as high school. It is a part of the a.s.p.i.r.e. school network.

TES Teaching Resources

TES Teaching Resources is where teachers can share and download free lesson plans, classroom resources, revision guides and curriculum worksheets. You do have to register, but it is free. It appears that there is a subscription based level of membership, but I was able to join for free and download several lessons without being asked for any sort of payment. I found 34 lessons related to the 2012 Olympics, from Greek history to current events. There were over 2,000 with the keyword search of Olympics. I narrowed it down a bit!

Kids’ Soup

Kids’ Soup is a paid membership site, but you don’t have to join to use the free resources on this page. If you scroll down the page a bit, you will see there are several free links to printables as well as activity ideas for younger students.

EdGate

EdGate gives you the Gateway to the Summer Games. Keep the spirit of the Games alive as you use these themed lesson plans for your summer learning. You might notice that some of the lessons refer to Athens as the home of the summer games, which it was in 2004. Most of the lessons, however, are not dependent on the year of Athens hosting the games. Read through the ones that sound good and change any reference to the 2004 games to London 2012.

Lapbook Fun

Summer Olympics 2012 Unit Study & Lapbook has a reading list and links to another lapbook about England. Combine the lapbooks with this page here of fun activities and you will have your kids wishing the Summer Games were every summer!

Cheerios & Lattes

MacKenzie from Cheerios & Lattes has a great list of “teachable moments” that occur throughout the Olympic Games.  She has them listed by category:  Good Sportsmanship, How Different Sports Are Played, Geography, Time Zones, Being Gracious When Winning or Losing, Team Work, Hard Work, Being A Role Model, and Math.  There are lots of great things to talk about as you watch the games!

This post is part of the How To Homeschool For Free series!