One of the things we love to do is to find fun ways to learn from real-life circumstances.
Whether it’s researching a bug we find in our backyard, checking out books from the library on a subject one or all of the children are interested in, watching a YouTube video on how something is made when one of the children ask about it at the dinner table, or pulling out the U.S. or world map when we’re reading a book that mentions a city, state, or country.
The Olympics have provided the perfect opportunity to research and study all sorts of things. Among a few of the ways we’ve capitalized upon the abundant learning opportunities provided by the Olympics:
::We had the globe out on opening night so we could find the countries on the globe as they walked in the parade of nations.
::We’ve matched colors with the Olympic rings and talked about the significance of the Olympic rings.
::We’ve talked about how close countries are geographically to the U.S.
::We’ve checking out books from the library on Olympic athletes and the history of the Summer Olympics.
::We’ve practiced guessing which flags are for which countries as they are shown on the screen while we’re watching the Olympics.
And this week, we’ve been learning more about London. We checked out Dodsworth in London from the library. The children all enjoyed this book — and we had fun practicing British accents while reading it aloud.
We also watched a documentary on Buckingham Palace, talked about the role of a queen, imagined how fun it would be to ride on a double-decker bus (both girls agree we really need to make these popular in the U.S.!), and we looked at pictures of Big Ben.
We also colored pictures of the U.K. flag and then practiced drawing them freehand. Now Kaitlynn, our resident artist, is drawing U.K. flags all over the place and both girls have decided they need to cheer for the U.K. some of the time, not just the U.S. 🙂
We made gold medal crackers this week: http://www.examiner.com/article/kids-the-kitchen-olympic-gold-medal-crackers.
I shouldn’t have submitted my reply so soon. I thought of more.:) We made glittery Olympic flags: http://www.examiner.com/article/make-a-glittery-olympic-flag.
We’ve also used some of the printables from 3Dinosaurs.com, we’ve done some of the activities from the What’s in the Bible? Olympics pack.
I love this post. Although my daughter is too young to do activites like this, you gave me good ideas that I will try to remember for later. I love the idea of learning everyday about what is going on in the world.
We looked countries up on the globe during the opening ceremonies, too, and we’ve moved it closer to the TV for the duration of the Olympics. (It’s usually closer to our reading area, for pointing where different things are that we read about.) My six-year-old is very interested in where things are. I also printed out some of the word searches, coloring pages, etc. that you’ve linked to and have them on hand for “hand busywork” — we’re trying to break the thumb-sucking habit now that permanent teeth are coming in, and her default is to suck her thumb when watching TV. Doesn’t hurt that they’re educational, too. 🙂
Grand kids were doing their own Olympics this morning playing the how far can I jump game. Their father is also teaching them the flags and now my Uncle Sam holds not just a flag but the “American Flag”. Now if I can just get my 3 year old Granddaughter to say Uncle Sam instead of calling the lawn ornament “Uncle Ricky” we could make some progress. The funny part of this is she doesn’t have an Uncle Ricky and we just have to wonder where it came from.
You would enjoy looking at this blog post from a Mom in Great Britain. It is interesting to see her perspective and the olympic park and grounds that we cannot see on TV.
http://curlewcountry.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-day-after-night-before.html
Love this! I like your family’s award ceremony idea too Michelle, sounds fun!
I enjoyed seeing your pictures and reading about your Olympic-related activities.
We’ve been trying foods from different countries, kicking off the Olympics with Fish and Chips last Friday. We lit a “torch” (candle) on a special cake we made, too.
Tonight, we had an award ceremony. Each family member wrote out an award and had a “gold medal” to put around each person’s neck. Some of the awards included “Best Artist”, “Most Diverse”, “Best Snuggler” and “Sweetest”.
Happy Olympics to you!
My kids are very interested in the rules of all the sports. They are also learning a lot about time and decimals (e.g. 100ths of a second!).
My baby is clueless. He’s just looked at me funny when I teared up a lot during the Opening Ceremonies and told him that his cousins live in London, and I love and miss them a lot. 😉
I am not a fan of double-decker buses–they make me carsick 😉
We haven’t been learning much with the London or the Olympics specifically (and I don’t homeschool), but I think it’s a great idea to incorporate real world happenings, past or present, into lessons.
I love history and geography, and I try to instill that interest in my daughter. She’s a very hands-on, concrete type of learner (which doesn’t always equate to academic success despite the fact that she is very smart). So I try to augment her formal education with trips and activities that relate to what she’s learning in school. She loves it and gets a lot out of it.
I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is a love of learning. I encourage every parent — whether they are formally homeschooling or not — to seize learning opportunities from life. They are everywhere all day long!
It sounds like you are doing a fantastic job mothering your daughter!
Thank you Crystal. I agree completely. There are opportunities every day to teach our children.
And children learn differently, so I think it’s important to figure out what makes them tick and work with it. For example, I love to read, can devour books and learn from them. But my daughter is very different from me. She’s capable of reading at grade (above in fact) but doesn’t enjoy it and doesn’t get a lot out of books (makes me sad but I’ve come to accept that about her).
Last fall around Veteran’s Day they had a section at school about it. I read her material; at her age, I would have learned from it. But my daughter, not so much. Then she caught a news article on TV about a flag ceremony that was to take place at our local Veterans cemetary. It sparked her interest, so I jumped on that and mentioned that the cemetary is quite close to where we live. Really? I want to go! she says excitedly. So we went, and she was able to visit with some of the veterans who were there. They were so sweet with her . She asked more questions than I even knew were in her little head. The men were so kind and patient and answered her questions.
I was a shy child who loved to read. My daughter is not at all shy, she relates well and communicates easily with adults (not all kids do), and she doesn’t like to read. So, where, at her age, I would have learned from a book, she learned from the experience.
That’s what I’m talking about.
My DS (4) is turning into a big Olympic nut just like me. As soon as he saw some of the cycling events he was hooked. We spent a day last week making up our own Olympic events, making homemade medals and eating British foods. Here’s a link to our Olympic day if anyone is interested.
http://www.momscupofambition.com/2012/07/kid-olympics.html
I’ve loved all of the Olympic themed printables you’ve been posting. I’m going to download some for a long car trip we have planned next weekend. Great idea on the globe; I wish I had thought of that. Oh well, if I can remember it in 4 years I’ll do it then.
We have been reading a few books about the Olympics, and I found a London Olympics workbook for my older son at the “School Box”. After watching the opening ceremonies, I want my husband and me to watch “Chariots of Fire” again. ha And I want to read up on Eric Liddell. Can anyone recommend a good children’s book about him? Thanks!
Youth With a Mission has a biography on him — one for young readers and a more advanced one that would be great for a family read-aloud.
Agreed! YWAM’s book for young readers is really good. It is written in verse form so it is fun for the kids. We read these books to our younger children and the older ones always enjoy reading them, too.
Torchlighters also has a DVD on the life of Eric Liddell. Our children have enjoyed watching this as well.
I second the torch lighters they are great.