February is one of ‘those months’ for me and homeschooling. The weather has us stuck inside more often than anyone can handle, our lessons seem to be stale, and getting into routine after the holidays always proves more complicated and challenging than I’m prepared for. Thankfully we have a good ‘distraction’ this month. The Winter Olympics in Sochi!
I’m beating off the cabin fever with a month of Olympic learning.
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Browsing Pinterest I found many great resources. Most of them are free or cheap!
The first thing we did was watch Winter Olympic History by Founders Academy. If you’ve not taken a Founders Academy class, what are you waiting for? My older children (3rd, 4th, and 6th grade) stayed focused throughout the lesson and enjoyed learning from someone other than mom for an hour and the younger two (K4 and 1st grade) popped over for sections of the class. Try a holiday course, there is a President’s Day class this Thursday (don’t forget to grab the lapbook)!
We also purchased the accompanying lapbook. For only a $1 investment, this could be used without the class as well.
The spine of our month is the Winter Games unit study by Amanda Bennett, which provides four weeks of open-and-go lessons, including links to websites to accompany lessons. We also added the companion lapbook. I found that the lapbook resources I’ve downloaded all compliment each other and are quite useful for making sure my full range of grades are getting the information and skills they need.
I’m always looking for FUN ways to reinforce math skills, so I was really excited to see A+ Interactive Math off a FREE printable math pack.
The Olympic games also offer opportunities for arts and crafts. The design of the Sochi medals incorporates a patchwork quilt. I am going to assign writing tasks to my older children according to their favorite events to help reinforce our language art skills. My pre-reader and early reader are able to practice identifying the letters and sounds of the alphabet. We can even learn a few vocabulary words in different languages.
3 Dinosaurs has a great selection of free printables, with plenty of pages for me to use for all of my elementary grade levels.
I’m hopeful that this unit study will give us the needed break from traditional learning and get us moving toward the spring quarter.
Is your family watching the Olympic games? What is your favorite event?
Great resources! Thanks for sharing them. I have looked at Founder’s Academy in the past but have not taken advantage of the courses. I will need to take a look again.
Blessings,
Angie
H.O.P.E. Home School Consulting
It helps to have something to break up the days after a long winter! We don’t watch the Olympics much, but I love reading the stories in the newspaper the next day!
So many great resources!
The kids haven’t watched much of the Olympics here — unfortunately they seem to be asleep when the more exciting for them events are on. But, it shouldn’t stop us from doing a few fun learning activities with it!
Stopping in from BYB.
My kids have been loving the Olympics and are sad they’re almost over. My youngest 2 have fallen in love with curling, of all things. My older ones love watching bobsled, skeleton, and snowboarding.
My children are still watching it OnDemand, lol!
My daughter’s school has been following the Olympics and doing a lot of fun lessons that are Olympics themed.
It’s fun to help educate them through their current interests!