Using the World Cup as a Learning Tool

There is one thing I am certain of when it comes to educating kids. You focus their study around something they are interested in and they will be more eager to learn then any other time. I see that in my house all the time. When we are doing math worksheets while sitting at the table, everyone is falling apart... but if I add some LEGO bricks or Barbie shoes into the equation, they are hooked and have the best time. So why not use some major events, that has us all excited, to our advantage? The Olympic Games, Indy 500, Tour De France... or in this case The World Cup!!!!!! My son is into soccer so I thought of this quick and easy set up to teach him more about geography of the World and the game itself. I hope this helps... and I am sorry about the pictures, the display is under the window and the light is making a mess out of the photographs giving them a glare and a smudge... 

You will need 

a World map

printer

tape

scissors 

paper

markers/paint/pencils

I bought the World map poster in Hobby Lobby for $5 on sale. (I think it might stay in the room even after the competition is over.) We attached it to the wall on the kids' eye level so they can easily read the names of the countries. (You might have a map in your school room already or you might be using one as a decor in your house.)

After that we looked up the schedule for all the games and printed it out. 

Then I helped the kids make their sign. 

We measured, cut, drew, and colored....

... hard at work

I love our colorful sign!

And now all we need are the flags of each country that qualified for the World Cup. Let me tell you I was so so happy (and I mean close to doing cartwheels happy - because that way I didn't have to come up with it myself) when I found this website with bunch of free printable worksheets about World Cup for kids. I printed all possible worksheets that will be attractive to the kids - word puzzles, word search, coloring pages, acrostic poems, jersey matching etc... I mean there is ton of them, go check it out...

I printed the sheet with flags, we cut them out and to save on laminating, I just used tape to make them durable. 

Lay the tape out and place the cut out cards on top of it...

...then just fold the tape over and cut it up.

 We looked up all the teams and placed the flags on top of the correct countries, (well, Europe was a bit tricky ;-)) using tacky putty for easy removal.  This gave us review of Continents and the Cardinal Points.

Kids had fun with it already and so now I am trying to come up with more interactive options. For example we will move a flag of the country that will be sent home... until we end up with the winner of the whole Cup. Then we will study a bit more about that country. We will also match famous players to their teams...

Any other ideas you have???? Please, leave a comment below. Thank you for stopping by!