Bringing the Olympics into P.E.

Hi, I'm Stephanie Weber, and I'm addicted to the Summer Olympics!  SOOO... This year, being an Olympic year, I decided to use that as a theme for many things in P.E.!!

We started our year off the same way the Olympics begin - with the lighting of the torch!  No, we did not use real fire, even though several kids asked if we could!  Each class participated in a relay to build an Olympic torch together.  Each student got their own flame to add to the torch uniting the class together.  They are currently on display in the gym.

Each student also helped decorate my bulletin board/wall in the hallway outside the gym by setting a goal for this school year and writing it on a gold medal.

And finally, the games!  Only a few of my classes have participated in the games to far, due to the weather... but I created Olympic themed stations for my students.  I set up stations outside using the games from the Summer Olympics.  The stations the students participated in were: Badminton, Basketball, Long Jump, Balance Beam, Soccer, Golf, Archery (using pool noodles... not real bows/arrows), Hurdles and Baseball/Softball (this will be back in the 2020 Olympic games).  Other than being active and learning a little about the Olympics my main purpose of this activity was for the students to work together. Every time they finished a station they had to go find a NEW partner.
Their goal was to work with every single person in class.  They could repeat the stations, but they could not repeat partners.  This was very fun to watch!  The students would run off to their station with a buddy, encourage each other and then run back to see who they were going to be with next.
The best part... they would greet each other with a high five before heading off to their next station! It is absolutely amazing to see all of these great relationships and cooperation in action throughout the whole school!