School Scarf Project

I came up with this idea a couple of weeks ago while looking at my stack of soccer scarves and wondering what to do with them. With school starting, I started thinking of displaying them in my classroom and that lead to this idea for a class project. I wanted to post the ideas for this project here so that if anyone wanted more info about it....they could check it out here. Here are some of my basic ideas. Suggestions, hints or any insider contact info is greatly appreciated.

• Students will choose a player to write to if they already have one they are interested in contacting.
• If the students don't have a player they are interested in, we'll start with a country or city they are interested in and use that to find a player to write to.
• Students will write letters/emails to the players. The students will ask for some information about the city they are playing in and how it is different than where they are from. They will also ask for a scarf to add to our class collection.
• When we receive a letter and scarf, we will put a map pin on the world map already up in the classroom.
• We'll take a class picture with the scarf and put all the pictures together with the letters in a class scrapbook.
• Send a thank you letter to the player along with a copy of the class picture with the scarf.
• Throughout the year, distribute special reward tickets to the students for good behavior/class work, etc. At the end of the year, hold a raffle for the scarves. Students will get to pick the scarf they want to keep. Picture of student with scarf will be taken to add to the scrapbook with a paragraph from the student on why they wanted that scarf. This will be dependent on getting enough scarves for each student in the class to have one. Current class size is 16.

My goal with this project is to improve students writing while incorporating geography, culture and soccer. Technology and research will also be incorporated in the project.

Will this project work? Who knows. I do know that our US Soccer players are some of the nicest guys around. Hoping they will take a few minutes to help our class out and then help spread the word to other players they know so that my goal of a scarf for each student can be reached.

Nowadays, schools get so caught up in the standardized test rut. So much of what I do as a teacher is focused on that. I want to do something fun and exciting for these kids that is still educational as well as motivational. I am hoping that I can pull this off while at the same time share my love of the beautiful game with my students.