I am working at a camp this summer and for our last week I thought I would do a olympic theme. How in depth do I go in to the history(this is a pre-k class)? I was going to say it started in Greece and show Greece on the map and how now it is in China. It is every four years etc. How they used to have different type of games i.e. chairot racing,wrestling etc. Plus they are going to do hands on things to do as well.
Melissa A
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I am not a Preschool teacher. However, I am a teacher and I am a mom to a 3 1/2 year old. Your ideas sound wonderful, but I think you might be going too far for kids so young. Our school used to do a field day activity every year with an olympic theme. I taught Social Studies to 6th graders and what you have planned sounds like more history than we would have done with 11 year olds! Try keeping it simple. Preschool is a bit young to discuss too much history because they just don't have a concept of what the past is yet!
There is always an Olympic mascot for each games. Try having them color a picture of the mascot. To tie in the sports, perhaps you can have them compete in some simple versions of them- such as a relay race.
Here are a couple of Olympics websites for kids:
http://www.kidsturncentral.com/links/2008olympics.htm
http://www.pocanticohills.org/olympics/summerolympics.htm
http://www.abcteach.com/directory/theme_units/sports/olympics/
http://www.first-school.ws/activities/firststeps/olympics.htm
http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/graphic/n214068254.shtml
Lee
Keep it simple but fun. You can certainly give a brief outline of the history - started in Greece with only a few participants but now has grown to be worldwide. You can mention that it has been held in various parts of the world and show one or two places that might be familiar to them. You don't need to go into a lot of detail history wise with a preschool group.
Ask the children if they know any of the sports in the Olympicsand then you can go from there talking about some of the "extinct" sports (chariot racing).Visuual aids (old photos/posters/magazine pictures) area a great help for the children to grasp the ideas of some of the sports.
I would leave out the every 4 years idea. The concept of time for them is restricted to yesterday, today, tomorrow. They have little understanding of future beyond saying "next year".
This is a great theme to do with children of all ages and there are so many ideas available now on the internet.
Enjoy.