End of the Year Fun: The AP Lit Olympics

This is the second post I’ve done about how I keep my students engaged at the end of the year. I teach seniors, and after prom they’re pretty much checked out. However, I don’t just want to show movies when there are plenty of fun things to do that can be related back to what we’ve done during the year. I posted recently about Literary Brackets. The AP Lit Olympics is what I do the last two days of school. Basically, these are really goofy games that are loosely (and I do mean loosely) based on books we’ve read before. Most of them are adapted from Young Life games or Minute to Win It challenges. You can do a search for either and find some good ideas. I divided the class into two teams and had them choose a team name and sign up for events. Here are the events from this year: Whitman Blow pop challenge (1 person): Competitor races another competitor to see who can unwrap a blow pop and be the first to blow a bubble of at least three inches diameter. Mr. Darcy Letter Challenge (4 people): Competitors will remove Alpha Bits from a bowl with their mouth, transfer them to a plate, and spell words. The competitor who spells the most words in two minutes wins! (I provided gloves for this one.)

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Mr. Darcy Letter Challenge

The Janie Starks Shooting Challenge (2 people): One competitor will shoot Q-Tips out of a straw at a cup on top of their competitor’s head. The team who knocks the cup off first wins. Othello Handkerchief Challenge (1 person): Competitor will have a paper napkin attached to their tongue. The first competitor to put the napkin in their mouth without using their hands wins. Caroline Bingley Book Relay (4 people): Team will go from one cone to the another balancing a book on their head with their hands demurely tucked behind them. Each time another book is added to the stack. If you drop your stack, you have to stop and put the books back on your head. The Heathcliff Baby Catch (2 people) Competitors will assemble a shooter out of a balloon and a solo cup and shoot “babies” (marshmallows) to “Heathcliff” (a competitor). The first one to get 10 babies wins. Oedipus Sphinx Riddle Challenge (4 people): Competitors will work together to answer riddles. Most points wins. (These were kid riddles I found online. Many were too easy. I have to come up with better ones.) Antigone burial challenge (1 person): There will be an army man and a cup on a stack of ten books. Competitors must move the army man into the cup using their mouth and standing on one foot. Each time the competitor succeeds, a book is removed. The person that can go the lowest wins. (I changed it to the Macbeth Dunsinane challenge and used a tree the following year.)

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Antigone Burial Challenge

The next two were based on the movie “Moonrise Kingdom” which was our last activity. The Sam and Suzy Dance Challenge (1 person): Each competitor will have 60 seconds to shake as many ping pong balls out of a Kleenex box taped to their back as they can. Most ping pong ball wins. Khaki Scouts Knot Challenge (2 people): Competitors must tie 5 Twizzlers into a knot only using one hand per person.

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Khaki Scouts Knot Challenge

Basil Hayward Drawing Challenge (whole team): Pictionary style challenge in which competitor draws words from Dorian Gray and entire team tries to guess what they are drawing. Most points wins. The kids loved it and it creates some terrific pictures. Everyone wins.

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

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