Olympic Theme Ideas... By Krissy

WELCOME BOARD: "Welcome to ____ grade. Go for the gold!" Put gold foil medals with the students names all around with red, white and blue colors and stars; or an American Flag background

COUNTRIES: Line your room with pictures of flags from other countries. Carson Dellosa makes some neat 3ft multicultural bulletin board people from around the world. Or start a postcard exchange. Penpals could send information about how the Olympics is celebrated in their country.

BULLETIN BOARD: Make a welcome board with the word "WELCOME" written in several different languages.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: Call them the "Gold Medal Student!"

RESEARCH: Have each student/group choose a country to research and report on. That could be their country to represent for Field Day. Use a torch and have a real ceremony to simulate the games.

RULES: Write your classroom rules inside the Olympic Rings of the logo. Post on the wall.

ATHLETES: Find a local olympic athlete to come and talk to your students. It could even be someone from the past olympics.

CLASSROOM REWARDS: Give out "Gold Medal" "Silver Medal" and "Bronze Medal" coupons. Have their values purchase various classroom priveleges.

TEAMWORK AWARDS: If your students sit in groups, have each group represent a country, hang the flag over their group and give them "Gold Medals" when they are the "neatest," "quietest," etc. The group with the most medals wins.

CLASSROOM OLYMPICS: Have academic olympics with your students. A math tournament, spelling bee, etc. can take on an "Olympic" format.

START OFF THE DAY: Call your morning activity (DOL, etc.) the "Opening Ceremony"

THE GAMES: When the games get here, spend some time watching some of the various sports with your students. They can learn a lot about various countries through the stories they might hear. You can use the internet to find out scores and students could track the results on a graph. Students could also use maps to locate origins of the athletes.