2021 Summer Olympics Unit Study

I LOVE the Olympics! We are not generally a sports-watching family but the Olympics is a different story…I want to watch every moment of it! I was so excited about the 2020 summer Olympics because that was going to be the first Olympics since we’d started homeschooling. It is not an exaggeration to say that I’ve been waiting for this for years – I have been looking forward to incorporating the Olympics into our homeschool since we decided a few years ago that we were going to homeschool our kids! It was very disappointing that they were cancelled last year but I am so glad they’re back on this year! I’ve created a summer Olympics unit study for us to do and wanted to share so you can use it too.

This unit study is going to kick off our homeschool year. We’ll work on these activities and watch the Olympics as kind of a “soft launch” to our school year – it’s a perfect way to ease into school without jumping in to all our curriculum at once.

Because my kids are so young (5 and 7) and we just had a new baby I’m keeping this pretty low key and simple. We’re definitely going to celebrate and use this as an opportunity for learning but I’ve also said “no” to a lot of the cool activities I found online just because this year it’s not a good fit for us. There will be other Olympics where I can go all out!

So if you’re looking for a simple way to learn about the Olympics and do a few easy activities with your kids with minimal prep or fuss, I’ve got your back!

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Summer Olympics Unit Study Plan

Here’s what I have planned. Take what works for you and run with it! If nothing else, the amazing workbook I found would be a fantastic easy learning activity to do with your kids during the games even if you don’t want to do a bunch of extra stuff.

To read leading up to (or during) the games:

My boys love Magic Treehouse books and we already had the one about the Olympics. We’ve read it before but I plan to reread it with the kids as a refresher.
I also got the corresponding Magic Treehouse Ancient Greece and the Olympics fact tracker book. It’s got a ton of information about the first ancient Olympics!

Honestly, that’s all I could really find about the Olympics that was age appropriate! This one looks like it would be good but it’s out of stock everywhere I checked. I’d love to have some more options to add to our library so if you know of any please leave a comment and let me know so I can check them out! It’s surprising to me that there aren’t more picture books about the Olympics. I found this list that has some books that are somewhat related to the Olympics or talk about specific sports but I really want to find some books that are more of an overview of the actual Olympics.

(I also purchased What Are the Summer Olympics but after flipping through it I will not be reading it with my kids until they are older because of some of the content is quite heavy (Hitler, Greg Louganis and AIDS, doping, etc.) and not things I’m ready to discuss with my 5 and 7 year olds – however if you have older kids who are ready to for those topics, that would be another book to add in to your unit study and does give a good overview of the modern day Olympics)

For referencing during the games:

Altas: We have several atlases but I will be pulling our our Usborne Big Picture Atlas specifically for the Olympics because of it’s great section about flags in the back.

Globe: If you don’t already own a globe, now would be a good time to get one! We have a hand-me-down one so we’ll be using that one but if I were buying a new one I think I’d get this one. My kids love finding things on the globe so I have a feeling this will be used a ton during the games to look up various countries!

Scrunch Map: Similar to a globe, we will be using (and I highly recommend if you don’t have one) our Scrunch Map. This thing is so cool! It’s a map but it’s on a fabric-type material so it doesn’t rip and it doesn’t have to be folded, you just scrunch it up and store it in the bag it comes in. My kids play with it all the time, whether it’s to pretend they’re traveling on an adventure or to look up places we’ve learned in our Classical Conversations geography. This will be great for them to use during the games!

To work on during the games

Activity Book: When I started planning my unit I had in my mind an idea of what I wanted but didn’t know how to create it myself. I was SO happy when I found this workbook! It is *exactly* what I was picturing and has everything I could want in an Olympics activity book, plus many things I didn’t know I wanted until I saw them!

If you don’t do anything else for an Olympics unit, at least grab this workbook for your kids! It’s got fun things like word searches and dot-to-dot and word scrambles as well as writing exercises, drawing activities, coloring, history, geography, math. And it has a two different medal tracker/tally charts, which was something I really wanted when I was envisioning our Olympics unit!

You can purchase this as a pre-made workbook on Amazon or as a digital download here or here. I went with the pdf version, mostly because I know my kids – if they mess up one of their pages they’re going to be all upset about it and this way I can just reprint the page(s) they need. The pdf is also more cost effective if you have multiple kids. That being said, the workbook version is definitely the easy button option and as I was printing out and assembling the kids’ workbooks I was kicking myself for not just getting the pre-done workbooks!

Check out my video about the bottom of this post if you want to see a flip through of this workbook.

Scavenger Hunt: I also found this free Olympics scavenger hunt. I printed that off for the kids the work on during the games. My kids love scavenger hunts so they’re going to really enjoy this!

Medal Tally: There is a medal tally sheet in the workbook we’re doing but I also printed off this free one and laminated it – we’ll hang that on the wall and use it to track the US’s medals throughout the games.

Japan Unit: Sonlight has a free unit about Japan. This is a great way to learn about the host country! It’s got reading passages and questions/notebooking pages that cover things like Japanese culture, government, climate, economy, etc. We’ll read a little bit of it each day during the games.

Also if your kids are older (age 8ish or older), this Olympics Unit from Notgrass looks fantastic! My kids aren’t old enough yet so I’m hanging on to it for a few years from now.

Food

Our family is all about some FOOD! On Friday (opening ceremony day), we’re going to have Olympic-themed food all day long. Our menu looks like:

Breakfast: either red and blue sprinkles on their oatmeal or strawberry/blueberry muffins
Lunch: 5 plates turned into the Olympic rings with various colored fruits, veggies, crackers, etc. (inspiration from here)

Snack: sugar cookies + white icing + m&ms to make Olympic rings cookies (inspiration was these cupcakes)

Supper: we’ll order out Japanese food to eat while we watch the ceremony!

During the two weeks of the games I may sprinkle in some other themed foods here and there too – popcorn in parchment cones to look like torches for snack one day, sushi for dinner one night, fruit pizza that looks like an American flag, etc. So many fun possibilities!

Google “Olympic party food” for lots of other cute and creative ideas!

Links to other activities

There are so many other things you could do to go all out to celebrate the games! You could decorate, play games, make your own Olympics activities, make crafts, and more! This is all we’re doing this year for our simple Olympics unit, but here are some other links I found in my planning if you want to add in more.

Watch this video if you want to see a quick flip though of some of the pages from the Olympics activity book