Learning Mosaic

End of School Year Idea

I’m sure you are experiencing the same thing I’m hearing around our school, end of year stress and social conflicts, inability to focus… and the students are showing the same feelings and conflicts! 🙂

I thought I’d share an idea/email (shown below) I want to send to colleagues tonight to help us get through the last 3 1/2 weeks. If you have ideas to contribute, please do! Want to collaborate?

Hallo!

That’s not a typo in the greeting but is “hello” in Afrikaans, one of South Africa’s 11 official languages.  I know very little about either South Africa or soccer, but I do know that students are as restless and tired as we are at the end of the year. Four years ago, as a third grade teacher in New Hampshire, I had several rabid soccer fans and we embraced the World Cup as a class to stay afloat until the last day of school. We incorporated it into math, reading, writing, podcasting, geography, arts and sportsmanship and had one desktop dedicated to the FIFA site for news reports and updates. We all learned a great deal from each other and it was one of my best Junes as a teacher! I’ve been thinking about resurrecting that idea this year.

I’ve listed a few random ideas below, but I’d also like to propose after-school open meetings in the villa from 4-5 this week on Monday through Thursday to brainstorm ideas- they don’t have to involve use of technology. I’d love to do some research for websites and resources for you as well.

I searched Google, http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/ and Wikipedia and came up with some ideas:

• Fine Arts- FIFA anthem, S African music and artists, team colors and jerseys, how does a nation’s flag represent that country?
• Geography- FIFA altitude ban, 6 confederations
• Language Arts: Write, revise and record podcasts sharing background information on the World Cup, teams, players, about South Africa … We can create a Moodle course where students can share what is created and learned with other classes.
• History of World Cup, past outstanding events during World Cup events
• Regulations and rules, how to play futbol, how rules vary between countries, how do teams qualify?
• Math- bet on games/probability (just kidding), statistics
• Learn about South Africa
• Around the world with 80 Schools – Easy global collaboration we’ve participated in here at ASM. Involves brief, pre-arranged Skype video or audio conference with another class somewhere else in the world. Meghan’s class recently skyped with a class in S Africa.
• World Cup for Kids website with suggested activities and game links
• There are many many other World Cup events such as FIFA Women’s and FIFA Youth
• Advertising- persuasive writing, images, evaluate advertising, make own advertisements
• Sportsmanship- with our international community we would need to talk about this with students cheering for different teams. Great opportunity for tolerance discussions.
• 2006 World Cup–  Reflect, compare, contrast
• FIFA2010 World Cup main page–  As I write this there are 11 days 12 hours and 29 minutes until the first game according to the countdown on the home page.

Do you have ideas to share? Want to collaborate?