This winter brings new energy to Hanby’s gym class with the return of a favorite program inspired by the Winter Youth Olympics.
In Alisa Franklin’s gym, Hanby students are writing letters to athletes competing in the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics, as well as competing in Winter Games of their own.
It all started a few years ago when Franklin saw an Olympic-themed bulletin board at the teacher’s store, and the physical education teacher knew she could tie the games into her curriculum.
Franklin has since done this unit three times, from 2013-2015, before she moved out of the district. She returned to Westerville in 2020, but was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in spring 2021 and decided to condense the unit into a smaller competition. A year later, metastatic cancer spread to her brain. She left school for a couple of months to focus on her health and was able to return the following school year.
Franklin is continuing to fight strong and has returned the project to its full glory this year.
“The kids love it because ‘This is my letter,’ and ‘This is me,’ and ‘This is what I got back,’” Franklin says.
Writing For Gold
At the beginning of the three-week unit, Franklin spends one week in her first- through fifth-graders’ classrooms to write the letters, encouraging her students to ask their athletes questions.
Courtesy of Alisa Franklin.
US Women’s Bobsled Pilot Jazmine Fenlator’s response letter to Franklin’s class of 2014.
The unit aligns well with the students’ writing lessons that focus on letter and envelope writing. Franklin even provides a template for her first-graders to help them learn the letter-writing structure and how to ask good questions.
Courtesy of Alisa Franklin.
Torri Readnour’s letter to former US Women’s Halfpipe Snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler and Bleiner’s response in December 2013.
“The kids ask about their training style, they ask about what they’ve done, how they’ve gotten there, what they ate,” Franklin says. “They come up with some really, really good questions.”
The students write to athletes competing in ice skating, hockey, luge, bobsledding, curling and any Olympic sport that is of interest to them.
Parents get involved in the program, too, by donating the stamps that will ensure the letters are delivered safely. Franklin mails them directly to athletes’ training crew and facilities, and then the students excitedly wait to hear back from their athlete.“And what’s really neat is, through the letter writing activity, they have had I don’t know how many athletes write them back,” Franklin says.
Student Competitions
While it may take weeks or months to hear back, students are filled with anticipation and excitement about the gym class competitions and classroom activities. Franklin hosts each class’ own Winter Olympics, and students compete in events like luge, curling, skeleton and bobsledding.
They begin their own sports competitions when the Winter Youth Olympics start, watching the professional athletes compete during lunch and learning about sports that they aren’t very familiar with. Other teachers even have their own Olympic units to coincide with the gym unit, emphasizing the importance of cross-curricular studies.
“It starts to create conversations,” Franklin says. “They really really enjoy it because it encompasses everything that they do, and they love it because they can see how everything ties together … from home, from the classroom, art, music, P.E. – everything ties together and the students truly get the experience of building something.”
Courtesy of Alisa Franklin.
Franklin’s students from 2022 competing in their bobsledding event with jump ropes and scooters.
Unfortunately, Franklin doesn’t have the resources nor space to set up an entire luge track in the school gym, but the students perform modified versions of real Olympic events in class. They learn about many athletic techniques and how they relate to science and pulley systems, as well as shows them the importance of wellness and hard work.
Beyond the Rings
Franklin has taught elementary school for 18 years and high school for four. She has taught throughout the district, beginning as the volleyball coach at North then teaching at North and South before she transitioned to teaching elementary school physical education. She has taught at Annehurst, Whittier, Longfellow, Pointview, Hawthorne and Hanby.
She grew up in Westerville in a family of teachers; her mom was a German teacher for more than 30 years, her dad a science teacher and her aunt a first grade teacher for more than 40 years. Franklin graduated from North before attending Lee University in Tennessee to play collegiate volleyball.
She returned to Westerville in 2020 with her husband, Dave, and started teaching at Hanby. This is Franklin’s third year at Hanby, and she loves experiencing the energy of her students and watching them connect the things they’ve learned.
“As a teacher, you know (they’re) making connections, but you are finally seeing it and I love it,” Franklin says. “You see them throw their hands in the air and they do it so fast because they’re so excited about it and they don’t have to interrupt you to make that connection, and it’s like, thank you teachers for teaching them that.”
Franklin truly enjoys teaching her students the importance of wellness and having a balanced life. She says it is one of the only subjects that you will use for the rest of your life. She says it is important to focus on learning about nutrition and exercise to stay healthy, and she wants to be a part of her students’ journey to living a healthy life.
Follow along with the fun on Alisa Franklin’s PE Class Facebook page with videos of different classroom activities and posts about events relevant to her students and their families.
Jane Dimel is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
