Catholic Olympic GamesClosing Ceremony!
by Sister Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA
Make the closing ceremonies of your Olympic Catholic Games memorable and meaningful for your students with these fun ideas.
Apr 29
Intermediate Catholic Olympic Games: A Fun Year End Review
Catholic Olympic GamesClosing Ceremony!
by Sister Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA
Make the closing ceremonies of your Olympic Catholic Games memorable and meaningful for your students with these fun ideas.
The Awards Ceremony
You
will need prizes, at least one for each athlete. (Even low scorers are
winners in the Kingdom of God.) You may want to make gold, silver, and
bronze medals out of pieces of construction paper or poster board
attached to ribbon. You might want to invite the two students who
scored the most points to help you distribute prizes. Small religious
articles make great prizes.
While students are receiving their
prizes, take down the paper plates. Then remind students that together
we all belong to the family of God—and family members pray for one
another. As a final activity in your Catholic Olympics Games, each
child is going to receive another child’s paper plate. This plate will
remind the student throughout the summer to pray for the person whose
name is on the plate.
Distributing the plates is going to create
a lot of movement, so you will need an open space. Have students stand
together in a group. They will try to catch a paper plate as you toss
them, one by one, into the group, Frisbee-style. When a child catches a
plate, he or she leaves the group and waits until every child has one.
(Do not allow students to trade plates. We are family, and we pray for
each other, even those with whom we may not be good friends or know
very well.)
You may wish to add a chance for the students to give one another the Sign of Peace and to autograph one another’s paper plates.
Then have students join together in a circle for a
prayer to officially close the 2010 Catholic Olympic Games. “Loving
God, please keep everyone in this family circle safe and happy this
summer. Guard us all in body, mind, and soul, especially the classmates
for whom we promise to pray. We ask you these things through Christ our
Lord. Amen.”
Just for Fun
If your classroom has blackboards, “Blindfolded Artist” is a quick and simple game. Send one athlete at a time to the blackboard, give him or her a piece of chalk, and then blindfold the athlete. Instruct the athlete to draw a simple Bible scene, such as the angel appearing to Mary at the Annunciation, Jesus walking on water, or John the Baptist standing in the Jordan River. If you’re keeping score, the athlete receives a point if his or her drawing can be identified.
Olympic Event: Tic-Tac-Toe Relay Races
Materials:
- Large tic-tac-toe grid drawn on newsprint or poster board.
- Green thick-tip marker
- Red thick-tip marker
- 2 magazines of approximate equal size and number of pages
- Roll of masking tape
Hang the grid in a spacious area.
Divide athletes into two teams of five, the Green Team and the Red Team. Line up teams side by side, one team member behind the other, at a start/finish line that you have indicated with a piece of masking tape on the floor. On the word “Go,” the first person on each team places a magazine on his or her head, moves toward the tic-tac-toe grid, picks up the team’s colored marker, and writes in an area of the grid a Beatitude, a Sacrament, a Commandment, a Gift of the Holy Spirit—whatever you have determined to be the focus of the relay. When the athlete finishes writing, he or she removes the magazine from the head and dashes back to the next team member in line, who repeats the process.
Entries may not be repeated except if both the Green Team and the Red Team athletes happen to write the same thing at the same time. If an athlete cannot think of something new to add, he or she must run back to the starting line and let a teammate try. The first team to get a tic-tac-toe wins, and each winning team member gets a point.
Olympic Event: Hymn Hum-Athon
You
will need to select from a parish hymnal those hymns that students
should know, including seasonal ones such as “Silent Night” and “Jesus
Christ Is Risen Today.”
As individuals, in pairs, or in teams,
athletes guess the hymn you sing—but you are not singing. Hum the hymn
or sing it only with la-la-la and/or da-da-da. Athletes get a point for
every hymn they guess correctly.
Warm Up Exercise for Intermediate Grades
Materials:
- Paper plates -- one for each child
- pencils, crayons, colored pencils
- Olympic rings and torches (CLICK HERE for patterns)
Remind students that Olympic athletes need to warm up before competing. The group’s warm-up activity will be for students to write their names on paper plates (one plate for each child), and to decorate the other side with words and pictures that show things they remember learning in religion class this year. Show students a sample that you have prepared ahead of time.
Tack plates, with names displayed, to a bulletin board or tape to a wall. Each time a student earns a point in the Catholic Olympic Games, Olympic rings or torch is drawn or affixed onto his or her plate.
Olympic Event: Take-Your-Pick Slopes
Materials:
- Slips of paper
- 2 wide-mouthed jars
Have each athlete, one by one, step forward and choose a slip of paper from one of the jars. If the athlete selects from the “Q and A” jar, take the slip, read the question, and allow the athlete one minute to respond. If the athlete selects from the “Charades” jar, he or she acts out the word, allowing one minute for the right answer to be guessed by any other athlete. Every question correctly answered or charade correctly guessed wins the athlete a point. The athlete correctly identifying the charade also wins a point. (The athlete acting out the charade can raise the number of fingers to indicate the number of syllables in the word.)
Olympic Event: Scrabble Singles
Materials:
- A pencil and a sheet of grid paper for each student
Declare “Go” and allow athletes five minutes to add words to their grids. On the word, “Stop,” have athletes put down their pencils and begin counting their words. Determine who has the most words and have that person read his or her list aloud. Question the athlete about any word you think may not fit into the assigned category. If the athlete’s explanation satisfies you, let the word stand. Then ask if anyone has words that were not already mentioned. Let those athletes read their words; question all words that do not seem to fit the category. Award three points to the athlete(s) with the most accepted words in the grid; two points to the athlete(s) with the second most number of words; and one point to the athlete(s) with the third most number of words.
For Catholic Olympic Games for Primary Grades, click here!
Sister Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA, has been a Sister of St. Agnes for over 30 years and a religion teacher and writer for the past 20 years. She has a master’s degree in pastoral studies from St. Joseph’s College of Maine.
Source: CATECHIST Magazine, April/May 2010
Copyright 2010, Peter Li, Inc. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced in any form without permission, except for use with your classes or families.
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