Olympic Reading and Writing
July 10th, 2008 by admin
Take full advantage of the excitement that goes with the Olympics this year by using it to help motivate young readers and writers. The world-wide hype can’t be beat for building interest and motivation for learning. And of course, motivated learners are the best kind.
Reading Activities
Here are some great ways to encourage reading as you prepare for and watch the Olympic Games:
Check your local library or bookstore for books about famous Olympians through the years. It’s really interesting to read the biographies of athletes; some of their stories are amazing and inspiring.
It can also be fun to look through the so-called coffee-table books that commemorate past Olympic events. The photography is simply gorgeous, and the text and captions are short and sweet to appeal to less-motivated readers.
Consider hosting a Reading Olympics! Have races for reading fluency and competitions for comprehension. You can go for the gold by setting an ambitious goal for finishing a certain number of books by a specific date.
Writing Activities
Pretend to be a newspaper reporter and ‘cover’ the Olympic Games. You can write a news story about one major event, or make an entire newspaper around the games, complete with pictures, weather reports, opinion pages, and comics. Use your imagination!
Write a letter to your favorite athlete, congratulating him or her or complimenting him or her. Do some research, and you might even be able to find out where to really send it!
Find out all you can about the rules, equipment and playing area for your favorite event and write a guide or pamphlet to share what you know.
Make a pronunciation guide for the names of the athletes. You’ll have to listen carefully, then use dictionary-like markings to write down how the names are said.
Research and write a travel brochure about one or more of the countries participating in the Olympic Games.
Make a poster comparing Olympic times and scores over the years. How have things changed?
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Whatever you choose to do, do it with flair and style. Help your students connect learning with real life and you will find that they hardly even notice the educational content of your activities.
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© 2008 Sandy Fleming
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Activity Ideas, Ideas, Seasonal Activities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
