Northport's Norwood Avenue Students Enjoy Own Olympic Village

NORTHPORT, NY — Norwood Avenue students got a taste of the Olympics in their physical education class, the Northport-East Northport School District announced.

The students got to experience their own winter Olympic village where they played "speed skating," ice hockey, curling, bobsleighing and more, all within the confines of their school gym.

The village was set up for all grades as part of the department’s cities unit, which arranges the gym to simulate a town or city and has students use a scooter to “drive their car” around the track. As they drive around the town, they earn monies which they must budget and use to pay for goods and services.

Within the Olympic village, the students took a similar concept and discussed how athletes train for many years to prepare for the Olympics. Teachers discussed how this training costs money to pay for coaches, travel and more. Students had to “speed skate” around the track using scarf skates to earn a dollar. They then saved their money and budgeted it accordingly, which they could then use to participate in the Olympic stations of their choosing.

The available stations were bobsleighing, ski jumping, ice hockey, curling, slalom skiing, luge and snowboarding.

To prepare for the activities, students had an “Olympic training area” and a livestream Olympic viewing area where they could prepare for the physical activities ahead of them. The Olympic Village was set up for two weeks so all students had an opportunity to participate.