With the 2022 Winter Olympics quickly approaching, fifth-grade history students turned back the clock, immersed themselves in learning the origins of the Olympic games in ancient Greece, and created a perfect opportunity to fire up a little friendly competition among themselves!
The Ancient Greece learning unit has always been a highlight in fifth-grade history. In 2020, one of the pivots that Middle School History Teacher Robyn Williams employed was creating a new, online, gamified format for learning about the Olympics. It was so successful that she used the same design with a few in-person upgrades for this year.
The stage was reset for the 2022 Fifth-Grade Pentathlon Cup. In ancient Greece, the Pentathlon was an athletic event consisting of five events for each competitor, including wrestling, javelin throwing, discus, long jump, and running. For the class competition, students worked in small groups to learn about the ancient events and competitors, and they had to earn Olympic rings to advance to the next level. In addition, boobytraps were planted in certain events to take it up a notch, creating time penalties if students answered them incorrectly. Teams could also use video-review cards against other teams to slow down their progress while Williams (the referee) reviewed the play.
Tasks included creating a timeline of the first five days of the ancient Olympic Games, reading content, taking quizzes, or recording short videos about the origin and history of the ancient and modern games and the typical athletes, all while using Google Slides and Google Forms, Flipgrid, Jamboard, Quizziz, and Canvas, and, most importantly, each other.
This hybrid format of small groups working through a challenge using technology fostered the competitive energy to win. The final touch was the medal ceremony where the winning teams were presented with ribboned, laser-cut medallions made by Pat Woessner, Middle School Coordinator of Instructional Technology.
Students thoroughly enjoyed the competition and shared a few reflections:
“I enjoyed that we were put into groups and got to have fun and compete while learning at the same time. One thing I found challenging was we always had to take our time. We did not want to rush through stuff because then we would have to go back and fix the mistakes, and we had time penalties. But, I knew if we worked our hardest, then we would have a chance at winning, and that we had to all work together to finish the assignment.” – Emma Oesch ’29
“My personal favorite was racing against all of the different teams. We had to think strategically about using video review cards to slow opponents down. The hardest part was the Jamboard, as it took a long time because we had to research each day of the Olympics. It was also very interesting learning about the ancient Greek Olympics and the modern-day Olympics. In all, this was a very fun activity.” – Ashton Constantine ’29
Congratulations, fifth graders, on reaching for the rings and your Olympic (history) dreams!