I love the opportunity to teach kids about the winter Olympic games. Between learning about different countries, focusing on teamwork and sportsmanship, giving students real-world context, and just finding a fun and fresh way to address our curriculum, my winter sports craftivities and centers are full of valuable learning connections for your primary students.
This year the 2022 Winter Games are being held in Beijing, China, with over 84 countries participating; giving classroom teachers an awesome opportunity to expose students to an array of different cultures and tons of sports that they probably have never heard of.
Even though they only happen every 4 years in real life, we can talk about the winter games every year because the topic is full of content we want our little ones to be exposed to like teamwork, competition, personal best, sports, winning attitudes and more!
Then we can apply those concepts to our curriculum and shake up their day to day centers. While we’re at it, we can throw in a craftivity to make these long winter months full of learning and growing!
Start with Centers
Winter Games Centers have 8 reading and literacy centers PLUS a class book. This is a favorite among teachers wanting to focus on teaching teamwork and different kinds of sports their students may not have been exposed to yet.
With these centers, students can:
- Put winter sports in alphabetical order and record them on a sheet
- Read about Skylar the Skiing Super Star and answer comprehension questions
- Fill in their own page for a collaborative classroom book about what makes them a team player
- Play a fun sight word card game
- Make sporty sentences by ordering word cards
- Go on a number hunt using clues with themed graphics
- Match picture and number cards to help bobsleigh teams find their torch
- Beat the clock by matching analog and digital clocks
- Measure winter sports themed pictures using paper clips and cubes
It’s a great way to build prior knowledge and get the conversations going about the different games, and will be a fun way for independent primary learners to extend their learning this winter.
Winter Games 2022 Craftivity
We know our little learners need the opportunity to build fine motor skills through crafts. The bonus craftivity add-on to the center activities will build student understanding of teamwork and sportsmanship, and will be a great addition to your classroom or hallway winter bulletin board.
This craftivity is a perfect way to teach kids about working together, because beyond being good readers, writers, and mathematicians, we really want to help our students learn to be good humans.
The printables that are included along with the craft in this pack are:
- A “Teamwork” acrostic poem
- 2 bubble maps
- “My Teamwork Mini Book” {available with both primary and secondary lines}
- 3 Great Writing Prompts: “I Am A Team Player”, “My Team ROCKS!”, “My Favorite Winter Sport”
- A list of fun team building activities to use anytime in your classroom
- 2 “I’m a Team Player” craft templates for your bulletin boards
- Bulletin Board Letters that spell out “ We Are A Team!”
Get each resource separately or
grab the center and craftivity bundle here.
Looking for more great resources to bring you through the long winter? Check out all of my winter themed resources here. And make sure to follow the All Students Can SHINE k-2 Community on Facebook for up to date tips, resources and conversations about primary learning.
Happy team building!
