Score Big with Soccer-Themed Learning During the World Cup

Right now, FIFA (the World Cup) is creating a buzz across this country and around the world. Soccer fans are glued to TV sets or (the lucky ones) are visiting one of the many fields to catch a game in person. Even people who are not soccer fans, are stopping and taking notice of this global phenomenon. Soccer is shrinking the world by bringing us together. The World Cup is giving us images of incredible perseverance, teamwork, and of course bringing a spotlight to the different cultures around the world. 

I love to take something like this and harness the excitement by bringing it into my classroom for the engagement factor. My favorite Soccer-Themed book (that is PREFECT for the World Cup ...and beyond) is The Floating Field. 

1. Why The Floating Field is a perfect read aloud during the World Cup

The book, The Floating Field, is set in the country of Thailand. A group of boys are absolutely obsessed with soccer. But their problem is that they live in a floating village and so there is not enough room to play soccer. And so the boys work together to come up with a plan. They persevere through hardships to create an ideal field for their situation and form a soccer team of their own. 

This book is rich in culture. Students will learn about the Thai. Another important thing this book teaches is perseverance. When people in the village do not believe in the boys they continue to persevere until they make their dream a reality and even after, they still continue to persevere through building a team. There are also themes of community as well as creativity. I just cannot not say enough great things about this book. If you do not own this book and do not want to purchase be sure to check to see if your local library has it, or you could even pop up a read aloud version on YouTube. 

My students absolutely love this book for many reasons. Automatically they connect with it over the game of soccer. To see that it is a universal pastime and that children in other countries, that maybe students have never even heard of, are also engaging in this game bring a strong sense of cultural diversity and unity. Students connect with the fact that at the beginning the adults did not necessarily believe in them. And for anyone who has dreamed big you will always have doubters. Students connect with the feel-good ending...even if you do not win, you know the journey was worth it. The camaraderie, teamwork that is built along the way, and the community fill us with a sense of pride. 

2. Classroom Discussion Questions

Here are some great classroom discussion questions that you can use with The Floating Field.

Why was having a soccer field so important? 

What obstacles did the boys face?

How did teamwork solve problems? 

How did the setting affect the story?

What would you have done differently? 

How does this story connect to the World Cup? 

3. Cross Curricular Connections

This book is a great book to use and making connections across the curriculum. Here's some ideas for connecting this book to different subject areas. 

Reading- 

Focus in on the following during and after reading.

Character traits 

Main idea 

Setting 

Theme

Text evidence 

Character analysis: changes over time 

Read biographies about famous soccer players

Writing-

Create a soccer trading card about a famous player. 

Science-

Floating and sinking- 

I love to do an experiment with a floating and sinking egg. You start by putting an egg in plain water and notice that it sinks. And then you add salt to the water and that makes the egg float. Students can use this activity to practice the scientific method.

Density-

Another activity I like to do with this book is to create a floating rainbow density table. Basically you have different cups of water with different colors for the rainbow in each cup. Then you mix in differing amounts of sugar, in each cup, to create different densities. Then you pour the same amount of liquid from each cup into a graduated cylinder starting with the densest color first, red, and working your way up to the least dense color last. And then your students will be able to see a rainbow of color that is not mixing. It just blows their minds. Again, I use this to reinforce the scientific method

STEM-

This is a crowd favorite in my classroom. Students use recyclables to create their own miniature floating soccer field. We test the fields in a bucket of water and celebrate our wins.

Geography 

Map skills- 

Find Thailand on a map. Students can even create a map of this country and pinpoint the floating city on the map. 

Weather:

Compare and contrast the average tempreatures in Thailand to the temperatures in your own location. 

Learn about the culture of Thailand through videos, nonfiction books, as well as food or entertainment. 

Math

Graphing-

Students could graph the weather data that they learned in the geography section. 

Measurement-

Measure the weight each floating field in the STEM project can hold without sinking.

Compare the length and width of different soccer fields.

Have a soccer kickoff and measure the length of each student's kicks. 

Factors in Multiples-

Students could find all the possible arrangements for floating platforms of different sizes. 

Elapsed Time-

Students could find the elapsed time for various soccer matches. They could calculate arrival times based on the time that it takes to get to the game. They could calculate how long halftime is. 

Multiplication-

Students could build arrays based on number of players on a team. For a more advanced take, they could calculate the total number of bamboo poles or floating barrels are needed to build the field. Students could find the number of people in a stadium, given the seats in each section and the number of sections. You could give them some multiplication soccer-themed word problems or task cards. 

Fractions-

Students could figure out things like:

If 3/8 of the field is underwater, what fraction is playable?

What fraction of the spectators are cheering for each team?

Geometry-

Find right, acute, and obtuse angels in a soccer field diagram.

SEL-

Have students do some goal setting. This works especially well at the beginning of the year or in January.

Work on soft skills with your students like cooperation, problem solving, and determination. 

4. Extend the Learning with a Soccer Activity

After reading the book, it was a natural slide into activities with a soccer theme. My students were still all-in. 

The activities that I chose reinforced important grade-level skills. Not only that, but they are relatively easy to prep. And they are perfect for using during or after the World Cup. 

STEM Activity:

Reading comprehension, goal setting, & soccer player trading cards 

Floating Field STEM activity

Goal Setting

Soccer player trading cards

Floating and sinking experiment following the scientific process

Floating Rainbow activity following the scientific process

If you are looking for a companion activity guide to go with the book The Floating Field, look no further. This resource will save you the time and trouble of creating your own activities...and we all know how busy teachers are. You can pick this unit up right now by clicking here.