2026 Olympics: In and out of the classroom

 Growing up, we didn't watch the Olympics. It just wasn't something that we, as a family, did together. I remember bring at a friend's house when I was in my early 20's and they were watching the Olympics. I enjoyed watching the downhill skiing and figure skating with them. When I came to BFA, I met up with friends who love the Olympics and watch their favorite competitions while cheering on their favorite countries. I have come to enjoy watching the Olympics much more in recent years. This year, I have loved watching all of the figure skating on a German site. I can watch for free and all of the narration is in German so I get lots of German practice where I am trying to figure out what is being said. It's been really fun to watch and I love that I can go in and watch the competitions that I want! So different from watching only what the tv station chose for us to watch back in the late 90's and early 2000's! My friends I mentioned earlier didn't have cable. ;)

This past week, my 5th graders competed in Measurement Olympics! We have been learning about measurment with distance, temperature, capacity, area, volume, and density. In the 5th and 6th grade Science curriculum, the 6th lesson in a chapter always has students doing hands-on activities that has them using the information that they have been learning in the first 5 lessons. 

Our first activities in Measurement Olymics were our distance events. We had a 5 meter shuttle run, a 5 meter by 1 meter chalk box where we did long jumping, another starting line where we did a discuss throw (with paper plates that unfortunately the wind was taking off with) and a shotput (with a straw and q-tip). The students partnered up to go through the events together. They timed their shuttle runs and used meter sticks to measure the distance of their jumps, shotputs, and discuss throws. The longjump was their favorite with the shuttle runs coming in a close second. I would say the discuss throw was their least favorite as there was just enough breeze that took their paper plates off to the side. Check out the pics below for our distance events! 

Our second and part of a third day was spent in doing some area and volume activities. Students made boats from tin foil, paper and toothpick for a sail and with a partner blew their boat across a tub of water. They then measured the length and width of the tub to find the surface area then found the height and multiplied to find the volume of the tub. 

As an intorduction to our last lesson in our unit, they placed their boats back in the water and used some coins (one at a time) to sink their boats. They then aswered questions like how many coins sunk their boats and why. 

Another of our Measurement Olympics events is measuring out a snack which is great fun! They have to measure out 5 dry ingredients for a snack in mL and in grams. We also make a drink, let it sit at room temperature and measure the temperature of the liquid before adding ice then checking the temperature again to see how it has changed. 

While this was loads of fun, it does take time to put together. There never seems to be enough time to get all of the activities completed. And I would like to revisit the snack-making and think through how to make that go more smoothly. The purpose of these activities is for students to learn, use the measuring skills they have been learning about and complete some enjoyable activites with them! Which they did! Goal accomplished!