Hockey was my favorite sport growing up. I was so excited to pass along this passion to my kids this winter with our new Hockey Unit with Free Printables.

It's the perfect winter themed unit study, especially for kids who enjoy sports. 

There's something about sports that invites children to try and practice skills in ways that they otherwise would not do.

Some people may wonder why I decide to create sports units.  They are definitely not part of the Montessori curriculum.  The truth is, I want to provide my kiddos with the best well rounded education I can possibly provide.  

Doing so enhances their love and appreciation of the world and people around them.  The more they understand, the more than can contribute.  

Sports are a BIG part of our society.  If my kiddos learn about them, they may be able to participate in more conversations, than if they hadn't.  

Talking about sports may sound silly to some, but to a mother with four special needs kiddos who all have speech impairments, finding a common topic to talk about with anyone is a big deal.  

And when it comes to Montessori, I've learned you can take any topic and create Montessori activities around it.  Just take a look at our activities this week!

Hockey Unit with Free Printables

Hockey Spelling & Vocabulary Words

With any new sport, there are new vocabulary words.  

What better way to learn them than to practice spelling them?  Especially when you have a picture to help you understand the meaning of the word.  

The kiddos LOVE using our movable alphabet letters.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Hockey Unit Printable Pack is a free printable. For your copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

Hockey Scale Activity

Check out our new scale!  It's beautiful isn't it?  The kiddos are in love with it.  

This activity has been very popular on our shelves this week.  

I've provided a matchbox car sized Zamboni (which came in a package of hockey sports cards), weights (came with the scale), a real hockey puck, and glass beads.  

The kiddos can weigh as many or as few objects as they like.  It's a very open ended activity.  

I figured this would be good considering it's their first introduction to the scale.

Source: This activity was inspired by a post at Suzie's Home Education Ideas.

Multiplication with Hockey Pucks

We have been plugging away at multiplication and skip counting for a couple of months now.  Each time I try to introduce it in a different way because the kiddos still don't quite get it, I fail.  That is until this week.  

To be completely honest, I didn't know I was introducing it in a different way.  The materials we used, I picked up because they matched our theme, and not for any other reason.  Little did I know the power of magnets.

The mini hockey pucks in this activity are plain black refrigerator magnets (no adhesive).  They love to stick together, but they can also be used individually.  For my kiddos, this made skip counting and multiplication easy. 

They understood the individual value of three "pucks," and then they visually saw the value of one set of three "pucks."  

It was as if a light bulb turned on inside their heads, especially for Dinomite.  I LOVE that he thinks multiplication is easy now.  (I may need to buy more magnets.  Lol.)

Dinomite working on a multiplication problem.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Hockey Unit Printable Pack is a free printable. For your copy, follow the directions at the bottom of this post.

Greater Than/Less Than Hockey Activity Cards

It's been a while since we've practiced doing Greater Than/Less Than problems, and it definitely showed this week.  

My guess is you'll be seeing more of these activities in future units. It's amazing how quickly kiddos forget things.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Hockey Unit Printable Pack is a free printable. For your copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

Hockey Sports Card Sort

Over the past six months, Dinomite has really developed a love for sports and sports cards. He's taken over his father's collection and LOVES receiving new packs of cards.  

When I started putting together this unit, I thought it might be fun to surprise him with some new hockey cards.  Little did I know how hard they would be to find.  

Walmart had two choices, the set that I purchased and one other one.  

I ended up going with this one.  It came with the Zamboni used in one of our math activities.   The players are older ones, but it still works.

In this activity the kiddos can look through the cards and sort them as they wish.  I love seeing how their minds work when it comes to sorting.

Top 10 Hockey Countries

Hockey is an international sport, one that's played mostly in the Northern Hemisphere.  

Last week, the kiddos identified countries in the Arctic.  

This activity expands a little bit further. 

The kiddos will find the top 10 countries where hockey is most popular.  They're doing a fabulous job with this, applying their knowledge from last week.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Hockey Unit Printable Pack is a free printable. For your copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

Hockey Teams in the NHL

Identifying the states where NHL teams are located is a great way to review.  The kiddos will use push pins to mark where teams are located.

And since some teams in the NHL are from Canada, I thought we'd introduce the kiddos to provinces.  They can choose what map they want to work on.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Hockey Unit Printable Pack is a free printable. For your copy, follow the directions at the bottom of this post.

Hockey Puck Rubber Band Wrap

The kiddos loved our last rubber band activity, I thought a hockey puck would be a fun shape to work with.  Sure enough, it is!

Water Transfer with Markers

The kiddos love water transfer activities but tend to get carried away with them.  This week I have marked the bottles with rubber bands.  They are only to fill the bottles up to the rubber bands.

Ice Hockey Tray

All of the kiddos have fallen in love with Playmobil this year. Dinomite saw this set at the grocery store around Christmas time. I couldn't resist purchasing it to add to our activities this week.  

What better to play with than a real ice rink.  I took a plastic lid to a cake pan, filled it with water, put it in the freezer and viola!

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Hockey Unit Printable Pack

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