Every Four Years

One of my very favorite things to do with students only occurs every four years. You may have already guessed that it is to watch and celebrate the Winter Olympics! The Winter Olympics are a great way to build community in your classroom during those dark, cold and somewhat dreary winter months.

I read recently that although we all say we resent all the extra work that surrounds preparing for December holidays, the reality is that we actually miss it when its gone (yes, you can begin humming here, “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone…”). As the article explained it, we actually thrive on the focus of preparing for the holidays, we just like to complain about it. Once the winter holiday events are over, we are all in for a big let down. This let down can even affect a group of students. With no big event to focus on those dark, cold and somewhat dreary winter days begin to take their toll.

But every four years we are saved by the Winter Olympics. Just when the stir crazy begins to go stir crazy we get this big event to look forward to and follow. Regular programming on TV goes out the window as we all settle in to cheer on our favorite athletes, get involved in their life stories, and watch intently as the whole world figures out a way to compete and get along, both at the same time!

To prepare for the big event, I create a great big mural in the hallway. The children all choose a country to be in charge of (I develop a list of countries based on the countries that actually win medals; one year a student wanted to follow Madagascar -because of the movie). Then I let them make the flag and include the name of the country on a piece of paper. This year we have student Chromebooks so it became a lesson in creating a document. Then I photocopy the medals and explain to the children that each day of the Olympics they will go online and check their country’s medal standings. They add medals each day according to how their country did! It is so much fun to watch the graph on our mural grow! And this year, thanks to our Chromebooks, the kids could watch videos that went along with NBC’s coverage of the games.

It was fun to watch the children helping each other figure out how many medals they needed to add. Someone would volunteer to be the checker and they would get after anyone who got their medal count wrong. The children began adding little fun facts to our mural and got better at saying the names of the varied countries. We definitely got caught up in the spirit of the games and this helped alleviate those winter doldrums.

So, in four years, if you find yourself dreading the long, dark months of winter, plan for your own Winter Olympic event, and have a blast!