I just finished a week long english olympics camp. For a class of 1-3rd graders, and another class of 4-6th graders. Went pretty well.
Day 1 - English Speaking Countries Intro / Torch Relay Race
Day 2 - Listening Games / Letter Slap
Day 3 - Reading Games / Magazine Scavenger Hunt
Day 4 - Speaking Games / Talking Table Tennis
Day 5 - Writing Games and Medals Ceremony.
Every team got to choose one of 7 English speaking countries to be (USA, England, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, or Canada). I got powerpoints for each country here
http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,4123.0.html Every day there would be an event where the teams would get a bronze, silver, or gold medal.
Gold Medal = 15 points, Silver Medal = 10 points, Bronze Medal = 5 points. There might also be bonus activities where teams could get bonus points for finishing work. I put up flags that they colored on the board, and then a blank sticker sheet with the five camp days where they could put gold, silver, or bronze stickers up. The kids liked putting the stickers on there themselves.
Everyday the gold medal winner would get chocolates, silver, hard candy, and bronze stickers. (Many kids prefer the hard candy to the chocolate)
Every day I would update the running score for the week.
At the end of the week, the overall winners got better treats and prizes.
Everyday I would focus on teaching them about another english speaking country with a powerpoint and a youtube clip. For my younger kids I also made them coloring sheets for every country.
In detail:
Day 1 - English Speaking Countries Intro / Torch Relay Race
•Olympic Intro powerpoint (might have formatting issues as I made it in Keynote for the mac)
•Torch Relay - You can use something cylindrical like a paper towel roll (I used part of a vacuum cleaner), then wrap some red/orange paper around a tennis ball to be the flame. They have to balance carefully to make sure the flame doesn't fall off, they have to stop if it falls off and put it back on. One team at a time makes a lap around the room then hand it off to the next person on there team. They either have to memorize a sentence as they go around or practice dialog("Give me the torch" "Here you go." "Thank you")
Time how long it takes the team to complete a set number of laps. Fastest is the winner.
Day 2 - Listening Games
•Intro powerpoint one of the english speaking countries and show a youtube about that country.
•Listening Event - Letter slap. Put out A-Z letters on a table. Then say a word that begins with one of the letters and the first person to slap the letter keeps it. Rotate players. Once all the letters are gone count to see who has the most. (I tried to make this a game where they had to use chopsticks, but it got ugly, I also had four teams play this at once, might be better with two teams playing tournaments style.)
•Also did a song listening game where they had to try to tally how many times certain words were said in songs.
Day 3 - Reading Games
•Intro powerpoint one of the english speaking countries and show a youtube about that country.
•Reading Event - Magazine Scavenger Hunt. Each team got a couple magazines and had to find an example from each magazine based on a list I got them. When they find an example they cut it out with scissors. (can get messy). At the end of a set amount of time tally how many each team got.
•for my lower students I had them read kids books and write down words that started with 20 different letters)
Day 4 - Speaking Games
•Intro powerpoint one of the english speaking countries and show a youtube about that country.
•For older kids did talking table tennis. I actually had a mini- table tennis sets I put up on a table. Teams played tournament style. They had to tell me the score correctly. Practiced the dialog "What is the score?" "The Score is __ to ____." The older kids got ten points per scores so they practiced saying 10,20,30, 40...100 points wins the game. If they couldn't correctly say or remember the score they didn't get the point. Playing Table Tennis was intimidating to some students, so you can do this dialog practice with any game. With my younger students I changed it to a rock scissor paper competition.
Day 5 - Writing Games and Medals Ceremony.
•Intro powerpoint one of the english speaking countries and show a youtube about that country.
•We made hot chocolate, after doing a hot chocolate word scramble sheet-each team had to try to spell 20 words with the letters in the word "hot chocolate." (Tip: Be sure the hot chocolate is not buring hot, because young kids will keep burning there tongues, chocolate > 2nd degree burns)
•Sentence scramble balloon pop event. Takes a bit of prep, but I cut up sentences and put them in balloons. Do not fill the balloons too much. Then tell the kids to pop the balloon but they cannot use their hands or step on the balloons. The less inflated the balloons the better. Once the balloon is popped they have to find the words inside, unscramble the sentence and write it down and bring me the written sentence and the word fragments. The first team to complete three sentences wins. With the younger kids I made them unscramble words that I had written on the board. So each balloon had letters inside. Fun.
•Medal Ceremony - Find some olympics theme music to play and give out candy/prizes to runners up, then better prizes for bronze, silver, and gold.
