Summer Hoops! A Basketball Unit Plan

This summer, I am trying to keep my kids busy (and learning!) by having theme weeks. These are very casual unit plans with books, non-fiction passages, crafts, and activities. My kids picked the themes for the ten weeks of summer and right now it is basketball week!

I thought I’d share some of the things we are doing this week in case it is helpful to other parents and teachers out there.

Reading

I found a bunch of books from the library that my kids could pick from for their reading time. My kids are upper elementary / middle school ages, so if your kids are much younger, you may have to explore what is available for them. You also may want to round this out with some books about local teams.

Here are some ideas for approximately 3rd through 7th grades:

• DK Basketball

• If Lin Can

• Crossover

• My Basketball Book

• It's a Numbers Game: Basketball

• Super Basketball Infographics

• Hoop Genius: How a Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball

• Cam Jansen and the Basketball Mystery

• Who is LeBron James?

• Various ReadWorks articles related to basketball

Activities

Besides playing basketball, we’ve been enjoying some basketball activities and projects this week:

• Making a mini-basketball game engineering design project

• Make your own pennant craft kit from Target (or make similar pennants with felt and thin wooden sticks)

• Watch a basketball movie - either Rise or Hoosiers on Disney Plus

• Basketball painting with q-tips (honestly the kids weren’t interested in this, but I thought it was cool - maybe a better idea for younger kids)

• Watch a local basketball game

• You could also make a basketball cake or cupcakes! Hint: If you want your kids to stretch their minds a bit, find a recipe for a three-layer cake and have them adjust it to make a two-layer cake. We did this recently and it involved a lot of ratios, fractions, and logical thinking. Bonus: the cake tasted great!

The Benefits of Unit Studies

Although this particular unit was fairly light for the summer, in general unit studies are a great way to delve into kids’ interests, build background knowledge, increase vocabulary, and make learning relevant. Stay tuned for next week when I’ll discuss our unit study about cats!