Students of grade 6, the “Unstoppable Challengers”, started their project for the academic year 2008-09 with the popular Indian game “Langdi”. They also played “Ball to Prisoner” a French game, one of their favourites. They drew up a list of rules and the exact procedure of how to play it, in the process of exploring sports and games.
There arose an interest in International games and sports through the upcoming Olympic Games at Beijing. They researched about the history of the Olympics, depicted on the world map the countries that participated, identified popular sport events in this year’s summer Olympics, read newspaper articles about heroes of the Olympics from all over the world as well as from India, past and present.
They looked at the games played in the Olympics and chose to research some of them – their rules, procedure, symbol, made flash cards of heroes in that sport and identified countries on the world map to locate where those sports were played. They followed the opening ceremony and other important events on television and followed up with class discussions based on newspaper articles about those events and sports persons. They were amazed to learn about the history and culture of the people of China and viewed the Reader’s Digest Documentary “The Great Wall of China”. A regular follow up of events was carried out involving the whole school through the school bulletin board. Students took responsibility to select articles and photographs from different newspapers and display them.
On the World map display on the school bulletin board, they depicted continents, winners from different countries, newspaper articles about Olympics, along with an interactive sharing of favourite sportspersons from across the world. Choosing countries from different continents, they made booklets and gave oral presentations with maps to show the geographical location, described famous natural and man-made landmarks, culture and life of people, flora and fauna, etc. Learning and understanding about these facts and much more was also achieved through accessing interactive websites of National Geographic for kids and sheppardsoftware.com
After the Olympics were over they decided to make their own Olympic logo for the school after analyzing logos of different companies. They conducted interclass competitions for shot putt, relay race, 100 m running race and hurdles. They represented the statistical data collected with the help of graphs.
They read life stories of world famous sports heroes like Arthur Ashe, Lance Armstrong, Nadia Comaneci, Scott Hamilton – the contributions they made to society and qualities that led to their success. Understanding the struggles and challenges that they overcame, students write a letter of appreciation, identifying qualities that they’d like to imbibe from their lives.
They also create an awareness and understanding about Cancer, celebrating 4th February – World Cancer Awareness Day, by making wrist bands with slogans about cancer and interacting with the school community. They make placemats for themselves that depict healthy food options using the Food pyramid guide, and show their own daily diet. They measure their height and weight and find the Body Mass Index ratio. Meeting a nutritionist, Mrs. Sonal Shah (a parent) and discussing their eating habits they identify the harmful effects of processed foods and plan a nutritious diet that will be suitable for them as sports persons. They initiate the café module to give a taste of healthy food options, make wise choices to plan a menu, purchase ingredients, cook according to the recipe, keep accounts, display facts about food nutrients, and work in collaboration with the café chef as well as within the peer group.
Project initiated by Anita Shah