A football theme classroom transformation is a fun way to engage students in rigorous tasks. It is the perfect transformation for February (think Super Bowl), but it works great any time of the year. Gamifying the curriculum naturally engages students, so adding a sports theme transformation will have students working without even realizing it.
Things to remember:
✴️ You can make your transformations simple or very elaborate. It’s all up to you. Just a few minor novelties will have your students excited to participate.
✴️ You can also choose to make the transformation a one day transformation, or you can choose different skills to practice and spread out during the week.
✴️ During our classroom transformation, we reviewed context clues using a football theme to prepare for our statewide standardized test. However, you can use this same concept with just about any subject, skill, or standard.
✴️ It works well in:
- whole group instruction,
- small group work,
- and even centers.
✴️ You can use the concept with:
- worksheets,
- task cards,
- or slides.
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1. Football Theme Classroom Transformation Decor Ideas
✴️ A few themed tablecloths or plain green tablecloths from Dollar Tree will help set the stage.
✴️ One of my favorite things to do to help build anticipation is to create or purchase a door sign that relates to the theme.
2. Props
✴️ You will need some sort of basket or goal post. (I purchased my baskets at Dollar Tree the month before Easter, but you can create goal posts using snap cubes.
✴️ Make sure each student has their own basketball. You can either buy foam footballs or even just crumbled paper. I suggest you number the balls, so the students know which one is there’s should it go rolling around the classroom.
3. Outfit
✴️ A striped referee shirt and a whistle is all you need.
4. Activities
✴️ You can use any task card set or worksheet you own. Set up the baskets around the classroom and give each student their own ball. As students choose the correct answers, they get a chance to make a basket.
✴️ We used the football theme grammar review during our classroom transformation.
- I assigned one basket for every two students and gave each student their own numbered ball.
- I projected the digital task card on the screen and gave students a moment to write their answer on their response board.
- At the count of 3, every student held up their response board.
- I then projected the answer slide on the board.
- If students got the answer correct, they had the opportunity to shot their ball to score the amount of points on the board.
- We proceeded until we went through all of the question slides.
✴️ It’s also a great opportunity to introduce students to football related terms. My students really enjoy working with word of the week words, so incorporating a word of the day resource is really engaging.
✴️ Providing students with football themed early finishers activities or brain break activities is also a fun idea. I love the idea of bringing puzzles into the classroom because it gives students the opportunity to learn new vocabulary.
These also allow for extension activities. Students can choose 2-4 new words from the list. They can then define the word on the back of the page, add an illustration, and write a sentence using the word.
✴️ Football themed read alouds are also a great way to integrate football into your reading block. There are a few great options for upper elementary students.
I hope you were able to gather some great ideas on how to create a football theme classroom transformation for your students. Be sure to check out the other classroom transformation ideas on the blog for more easy to implement inspiration.
