English Conversation Olympics

I love the Olympics. I love everything about them. I love the excitement of the opening ceremony. I love the competition and anxiety waiting to see how all of the athletes will perform. I love watching Michael Phelps. And most of all, I love that there is something that most countries of the world can come together and participate in. With the Winter Olympics being this year, Sarah and I decided that we ought to do something special to commemorate them. Enter The English Conversation Olympics.

For the whole month of January we have had our students creating team names and flags, competing in a variety of Olympic events, and earning medals for their teams. It was been a lot of fun for everyone involved and has been a welcome change of pace for me. Each grade is only in competition against the other sections of their grade, so it's fair in that respect. Some games have been played by all grades, and others are reserved for the particular grades that invented them.

One of the first events we did was "Create Your Own Olympic Event." This seemed like the perfect way to help the students get excited about the Olympics and to get their input. Plus, they are super creative and did not disappoint us with some of their creations. The following are some of the games that won medals and that we have been playing:


Slalom
The class constructs an obstacle course. One student must navigate it blindfolded, while another students gives him/her directions. When played this ended up with students standing on desks, sticking their heads out of windows and yelling, as well as attempting to climb on top of a wardrobe. No one was hurt. I vote a success.

Round Run
Two students are tied together for a three legged race. After answering a question, the pair run a lap around the classroom. The winning pair was a boy and girl pair, in which the boy nearly dragged the girl around the room. Again, no one was hurt. Success.

Kayak Risky Track
The students construct an obstacle in the room with ten gates. The students must act as one person going through the course, in that they must always be touching. They have to answer a word formation question at each stop. Here I had chains of students climbing over and crawling under desks. It was awesome.

Jello Surprise
Sadly I was unable to exactly create the game that way the students wanted it to be. Their original idea was to have a Kinder Egg hidden at the bottom of a cup of Jello. Each student would have to each the Jello as fast as they could, eat the Kinder Egg, and then do the English task that was inside of the Egg. Since I was unable to make a Kinder Egg, they just had to eat a cup of Jello and then do the task that was set on a folded piece of paper on their desk. Watching this event was HILARIOUS. Now, one might think that the boys would have dominated this event, but in actuality more girls wanted to do this event and the girls ended up winning the event. Though some students took on the strategy of shoving as much in their mouth at one time, the girl who ended up winning was the most composed eater of them all, and just ate one spoonful at a time.

Of course, Sarah and I have created some good games ourselves. Though not quite as silly, they are somewhat stretching the bounds of what should happen in a conversation class, but whatever.


Travel to Vancouver
This is a game I created, following a low ropes team building activity from Lutherlyn. I created a game board was like a big grid. Students started at the bottom and would have to make their way through the grid following a secret path in order to make it to the top. Students would have to answer a question in English and then they would have one guess at the path. Each path was 12 steps long. The group that guessed it in the fewest number of ties would win. It was so much fun listening to the students plot and scheme their guesses. Though the paths were completely random, they were geniunely upset and frustrated when I told them a guess was incorrect. "But Miss Colleen, we were so sure!" Their certainty and disappointment was really entertaining to watch.

Blindfolded Pictionary
Sarah made this game, and is exactly what it sounds like. The students loved this game because it was so silly and we laughed so much while we played. The hardest words were baby and pierogi. Some students were almost in tears because we were laughing so hard.

The rest of this week and then last week will be the last days of our Olympic Games. The last Tuesday before our two week winter break will be our closing ceremony and we will announce the winners in front of the whole school. But for now we must wait in anticipation to see who will come out on top.

Blessings,
Colleen