The Olympics: Then and Now

Audience: 5th- 6th Grade Utah Students, Special Education/Title One

SOCIAL STUDIES / MATHEMATICS / LANGUAGE ARTS / FINE ARTS
Academic Topic / Compare ancient Greek culture with current Greek culture through the Olympics / Use tables and graphs to record your country’s participation in the Olympics / Using comparison and contrast – Summer Olympic sports – Then and Now. / Students will interpret and apply visual arts in relation to cultures, history, and all learning. Students will compare the arts of different cultures to explore their similarities and diversities.
Whole Group Activity / Overview of concepts and vocabulary, view the captioned video GREECE (link to Teacher’s Guide) / Overview and examples of how graphs and tables have been used to represent data in past Olympics / Overview of concepts and vocabulary. KWHL chart – Summer Olympic Sports – Then/Now
KWHL Chart
Do as a group (projector/computer) / Overview of concepts and vocabulary: View slide show of Olympic Art from Ancient Greece and the 20th century. Review history of Art and the Olympics and discuss work in terms of culture, art materials, tools, technology as contributing elements of early vs. later art for pieces shown. Students will complete note sheet.
Technology Station / Hotlist Internet activity comparing old Olympics cultural rules with current Olympics cultural rules (including rules concerning women) / Enter daily statistics about the number of medals each country has won into an Excel spreadsheet. Decide which graph would be best to use to present this data, and why. / Review of Olympic Sports Past
Past Olympics Video (RealPlayer)
Games in Ancient Greece
Olympic Games in Modern Times / Web activity: Students will be on a committee to select Olympic Art for the 2004 Olympic games.Using an evaluation rubric, students will look at various submissions of art (either the student posters created by the class, or authentic Olympic artwork submitted for the 2004 games, and analyze for originality, creativity and effective use of Art principals. Ratings will be given and a winner selected.
Exploration Station I / Make a chart showing sports in the early Olympics, sports from the current Olympics, and projected sports in summer Olympics 2044 / Analyze information from an existing graph and answer the questions on the worksheet. / Use word processing software to revise comparison/contrast sentences.
Write 2 sentences.
1. Statement of facts learned about Olympic Games in Ancient Times
2. Statement of facts learned about Olympic Games in Modern Times. / Olympic art and Art Timeline: Students will develop a timeline of Olympic Art Posters, matching them to a time period, analyzing how culture may have contributed to composition.
Exploration Station II / Given a written description, students will identify key words to assist them in matching pictures of famous Greek architecture to the description. / Create a survey about the Olympics to give to students. Have some of your classmates take the survey. Compile information from survey and create table or graph. / Bingo Game – Olympic Vocabulary / Using a variety of media, students will design a poster for the 2004 games.
Olympic Poster Design
Summer Olympic Posters
Text Station / Students will choose one of the 9 Olympian Gods or Goddesses. They will read a short story about the God, and use Inspiration to make a scatter diagram of the characteristics and attributes of that Olympian. / Read the article and decide the best way to represent the information. / Hotlist. Read a passage – narrative and informational text. Locate facts through internet resources. Construct a Venn Diagram to show Then/Now content.
CreateDiagram (Using the hotlist – List 5-13 Summer Olympic sports for Then/Now / Look at Olympic Art pictures, some ancient and some new and read their descriptions. Choose one ancient work and one modern work and write one paragraph explaining why student likes or dislikes the work.