The Olympics

By: Michelle Martin

Analyze the Learner

▪ Teaching about the Olympics to a 3rd grade class, 10 boys and 12 girls, 80% white, 15% African-American and 5% Latino. Two of the students have IEPs for learning disabilities. The students have previously studied geography of the United States and a few other countries, this unit will build on this prior knowledge.

Main Objective

▪ Students will recognize and apply concepts that reflect the history of the Olympics, Olympians and the different countries by exploring and utilizing videos, books and other resources, and by creating his or her own projects that depict different countries and/or people with 70% accuracy by the end of the unit.

Day by Day Breakdown

▪ Day 1: The history of the Olympics past to present

▪ Day 2: Symbols, mottos and traditions

▪ Day 3: Culture of the different host countries

▪ Day 4: The Olympians

▪ Day 5: Health and fitness that are important for athletes, but should be applied to students daily lives

Use of Technology

▪ YouTube: Watch clips from different Olympics to see the change from past to present and teach kids about healthy tips and tricks that they need to know in order to become an Olympic athlete

▪ Computers: used as a research technique, but students will be given particular sites to use to ensure they are looking at appropriate material

▪ PowerPoint: used as an option for students to present material they find on his or her assigned Olympian and Country

▪ SMARTBoard: this will be used to present materials and create interactive tools to present concepts and history of the Olympics

Additional Technology

▪ Glogstser- used to create poster about country that has hosted the Olympics

▪ Facebook and Twitter- A class page will be created and used to inform students of due dates and add interesting links, etc. relavent to the Unit at the time. Twitter will also be used to allow students or myself to follow athletes and learn about them through social media.

▪ Wiki-used to display student work, similar to a portfolio and used for assessment

▪ Digital imaging- I will use this to create a poster that will get the students excited about the unit

▪ Blogs- I will create a blog with open ended questions at the end so that students can respond with their opinion when discussing that topic

▪ Podcast- I will use the podcast to post summaries of a lesson if a student is not present

▪ Secondlife- This will be used in order to have at home discussions about projects, if students do not understand they can ask a classmate (another avatar) or ask me using second life. This will make discussions more fun and allow students to work on computer skills

▪ WebQuest- I will create multiple WebQuest to use throughout the unit in order to help students gain a better understanding of concepts, do something other than listen to a lecture and to give them the opportunity to research and find out for themselves

Work Cited

▪ "2014 Olympic Winter Games: Sochi." TeacherVision. Pearson Education, Oct. 2013. Web. 9 Feb. 2014. <https://www.teachervision.com/olympic-games/physical-education/64877.html>.

▪ https://www.teachervision.com/olympic-games/physical-education/64877.html

▪ "Olympics On-Line Theme Unit Page 1." Olympics On-Line Theme Unit Page 1. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2014. <http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/theme/olympics01.htm

▪ http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/theme/olympics01.htm

▪ "The Olympics - EnchantedLearning.com." The Olympics - EnchantedLearning.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014. <http://www.enchantedlearning.com/olympics/>.

▪ http://www.enchantedlearning.com/olympics/