Olympic Torch

Olympics School–Day Thirteen

Like all good things, today the Olympics had to come to an end. We had to sneak in one last day of Olympics school before it was all over!

We started by making a fun snack/craft. Just as we started Olympics school with a torch craft, today we ended with one, to symbolize the passing of the torch to the next Olympic city, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I thought an edible craft would be a fun change, so we dipped pretzel rods in melted white chocolate and sprinkled with yellow sugar. (I considered red and/or orange, as well–orange was my first choice, but I couldn’t find that at Wal-Mart, so yellow it was!). Chocolate covered pretzels are always delicious, and Olympic-themed ones even more so!

Turkey and Bunny had one last written assignment–a short report on what they’ve learned about England. They covered things such as cities, popular foods, common plants and animals, and native dress (basically, fancy hats!). It was fun to see which elements of British culture really stuck with them…and if we had had a landmark section in the report, they may never have finished it, they’ve enjoyed learning about all of the famous places in England so much!

We also did “medal” math one last time. In addition to adding up the medals on our chart, we compared the total medals of each country this year to their medal totals in the Beijing Olympics, and tracked their gains and losses. We also added up all of the medals in the Commonwealth Realms, and decided that the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, wins the Olympics!

And, since “Bolting” was so much fun, we tried doing the “Mobot,” too!

Prior to the Closing Ceremonies, we had an English meal for dinner…sausage rolls for the main course…

and a traditional English trifle for dessert!

I’m sad to see our “London Summer” come to an end…between the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, we’ve had so much British fun! Maybe we’ll just have to have an English Christmas…

Today’s Passport Stamps: English Cuisine and Citius-Altius-Fortius

Olympic Torches

I shared about our Olympic Torch craft in my last post, but they turned out so well, I thought some more detail was in order.

We started with a nine-inch square of white(ish) construction paper. Roll the square into a cone, and secure with tape. The fun thing here is that everyone can roll their cones differently. Some of the children wanted a narrow neck, while others preferred a really wide neck for a huge flame. It doesn’t matter how it turns out, as long as you like it!

Get a small stack of tissue paper. I had six sheets per torch, again about a nine-inch square. We used one sheet of red, two orange, and three yellow per torch, but the colors and combinations are, again, totally up to the designer.

Pinch the bottom center of the stack together, like you’re making a bunch of flowers. Fit into torch, and secure with craft glue.

You can also decorate the torch itself…Turkey added the London 2012 logo to his, while Bunny chose the Olympic Rings, and Ladybug doodled on hers. Moose preferred a clean, non-fussy look for his torch.

If you’re making more than one, you can make them in stages so that you can “light” one from another, as well!

Olympics School–Day Three

Today we finished our first Olympic “venue” by studying of the last of the Olympic traditions–the Olympic torch. After reading about the history of the torch and the relay, we turned to the London 2012 website to learn about this Olympics’ unique torch. We learned about the design of the torch and what it represents. We looked at a map of the relay route, and saw just how many places the torch has been. We also looked at a photo gallery of the relay, and were amazed at all the ways it has traveled, including by boat, train, and even jet pack! We’ll be very excited to see the torch arrive at Buckingham Palace (William and Kate are supposedly going to be welcoming it), and even more excited to see the big cauldron lit at the Opening Ceremonies!

Of course, we had to have a craft to go along with all we learned, so we made our own torches, and had a “relay” of sorts. We were going to do that outside, but due to extreme heat, we decided to go with the much cooler indoor torch relay, instead. It was definitely a short trip, but there’s something to be said for not getting overheated!

We also read a chapter from Great Moments in the Summer Olympics. This is one of our book basket selections, but I’ll be reading three (of my favorite) chapters out loud this week. Today I chose women’s gymnastics, which tied in to an NBC special we watched last night about great Olympic moments. Of course, the Magnificent Seven was showcased in each, and the girls, especially, liked learning about Kerri Strug’s courageous vault during the 1996 Atlanta games, I enjoyed sharing my memories of it with them!

Only two more days until the Olympic torch is brought into the Olympic Stadium!

 

Today’s Passport Stamps: Olympic Torch and Olympic Venue One–The Olympic History and Traditions

Activities for the Olympics

Let me just start by saying that my favorite place for Olympics printables and craft ideas is Activity Village. I used this site for our Diamond Jubilee coloring pages and worksheets as well, and it has tons of great resources. That being said, I also found other places with great ideas, too, and have chosen quite a few of them for our school. If you look, there are also lapbooks galore available for the Olympics, but I’ve never gotten into the lapbooking craze, so that’s one thing we won’t be doing. I’ve also heard good things about the Amanda Bennett Olympics study, but I just don’t have time for everything! The best part about all of these projects? I’ve had to purchase very few supplies to complete them…most of the items are things we already had around the house!

  • Torch Craft–Our first project, before the Olympics officially start, will be making a torch. There are lots of torch crafts out there, but this my favorite. We may even have our own family torch relay!
  • Olympic Rings–There are also a lot of Olympic Rings crafts, but I thought that paper plate Olympics rings were especially cute. This will be particularly fun for Moose and Ladybug (and good cutting practice, too), but I’m sure Turkey and Bunny will probably want to make their own, as well.
  • Design-a-Flag–Prior to the Opening Ceremonies, we’ll each have a chance to design our own flag. We’ve done this before, and it’s always fun to see how the children’s ideas for their personal flags change!
  • Memory Verse/Handwriting–The New Testament has several verses that are appropriate when discussing the Olympics, and as long as we’re memorizing one, we may as well work on our handwriting at the same time!
  • Trip Planning–One of our big projects will be planing a (fictional) trip to London. I even purchased a travel guide…if I’m lucky, maybe someday I’ll get to use it for real (even if it will be outdated by “someday”). We’ll look for landmarks we want to visit and map it all out. Cost is no object for this trip!
  • Workbooks–Although I did purchase two consumable books for the children to share, the bulk of their worksheets and coloring sheets will come in the form of workbooks I put together for them. There will be lots of different activities, including coloring pages, word searches, Sudoku, word scrambles, mazes, and more. I even found notebooking pages!  They’ll make a nice keepsake of our studies when we’re all done, too.
  • Design-Your-Own Olympics Items–This will become part of the children’s workbooks when it’s done. Each child will design his or her own Olympic logo, mascot, team shirt, and medal.
  • Medal Chart–No Olympics would be complete without tracking the medals won. We’ve chose 10 countries…the United States, of course, and host country England (technically the United Kingdom, to be exact), and then picked other countries we’re interested in, making sure to have at least one from each participating continent. And while we’re counting medals, we can also learn about this year’s design on the NBC Olympics website.
  • Medals–Speaking of medals, one craft project will be making medals as awards for our “Family Olympics.” We might make salt dough medals, or we might just use metallic cardstock. We did glitter last time, so I know that I don’t want to that again, although they did look awesome!
  • Family Olympics–The activities will be whatever we choose. It could be a physical activity like a race, or something silly like who can shuck an ear of corn the quickest. Maybe we could even award a medal for the winner of a family spelling bee!
  • Olive Leaf Crowns–I found a pattern for this in The Olympic Experience in Your School, but all you really need is green leaf shapes and  a green construction paper headband. Since we’ll be learning about both the modern and ancient Olympic games, it seems fitting to make awards that reflect both!
  • Passports–I also got this idea from The Olympic Experience in Your School, but decided to change it around a bit. I ordered some cute sticker book passports from Oriental Trading, and will be using those stickers, as well as some “stamps” I make to mark the different “venues” we’ve visited, including the history of the Olympics, design-your-own, sports, and the Olympic Spirit around the world.
  • Research Project–Turkey and Bunny will be given the task to write a short report on either a famous Olympian, a participating country, or an Olympic event. This report will also go into their workbooks.
  • Union Jack–I looked at a lot of Union Jack crafts, and I thought this would be a fun project for the children to do, and would reflect the host country at the same time. It’s also something a little different, since we just colored Union Jacks for the Diamond Jubilee last month.
  • Union Jack Cake–This activity is all mine…I’m going to make a Union Jack cake for the Opening Ceremonies, provided I can get the conversions figured out. I may also make some different foods from around the world, depending on how adventurous I’m feeling.
And I almost forgot…
  • Tea Party–Anytime we learn about anything British, it’s time for a tea party. We did it for the Royal Wedding, and again for the Diamond Jubilee, and we’ll be doing it once more for the Olympics. I try to switch up the menu, and also serve a different flavor of tea each time, so we get to try new things, and so it’s always a little different!

These are only the big activities. We’ll also be doing a pictogram study, looking for world flags from our flag sticker book during the Opening Ceremonies, learning about the Olympic motto and oath, studying some Olympic vocabulary words, listening to Summon the Heroes, learning a little geography and history, reading a whole bunch of books, plus whatever else I throw in. I love the Olympics, and they provide a great opportunity for fun and learning!