A significant holiday is approaching -- not Valentine’s Day or President’s Day – Super Bowl Sunday. While you won’t get a day off work, the Super Bowl practically counts as a national holiday, especially for your more sports-crazed students.

But how can you take advantage of the Super Bowl enthusiasm in the classroom? And how do you do a Super Bowl activity when some of your students – and maybe you yourself – aren’t really excited about football?

My Top 12 Super Bowl Classroom Activities are guaranteed to bring a winning attitude to your classroom, even if your home team isn’t playing.

Super Bowl 101

There’s no better way to impress your sports-minded students than striking up a pre-class conversation about the big game. So here are a few quick details for the non-football inclined:

• The Super Bowl will be on Sunday, February 5^th, in Indianapolis.

• It will feature the New England Patriots (Quarterback: Tom Brady) and the New York Giants (Quarterback: Eli Manning). It is a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl, in which the Giants prevented the Patriots from having a perfect season.

• Tom Brady is considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. Eli Manning is the younger brother of Peyton Manning. Peyton is also considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever.

• The Patriots are coached by Bill Belichick, who many consider one of the greatest coaches of all time. The Giants are coached by Tom Coughlin.

With those details under your belt, you may be able to strike up a conversation by asking your students who they think will win, whether they think Brady is the greatest of all time, and so on.

If you live in Baltimore or San Francisco, you’ve got even more built-in conversation – the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers were the teams that the Giants and Patriots beat to make it to the Super Bowl.

Football Measurements

For students learning measurements, this is a great chance to practice. For example, a first down is ten yards. The football field is 100 yards (plus the end zones). An easy field goal might be 20-30 yards. A hard field goal is 50 yards. Have students practice converting these numbers into feet or even into meters.

Hometown History & Geography

Many – not all, but many –NFL teams got their names because of where they play. The New England Patriots, with their mascot of a Revolutionary War musket man, are one example. So are the 49ers (for the California Gold Rush), the Ravens (Edgar Allan Poe lived in Baltimore), and the Green Bay Packers (named for the meat packers who worked in the area).

Give students a blank U.S. map and the names of all 32 NFL teams (available on NFL.com). Have students do their best to place the team names on the map where they belong. As they do so, invite students to guess if the name is connected to the location or not. You can take this activity one step further by adding in the team logos, since some (like the New Orleans Saints’ fleur-de-lis) are also tied to local history.

Sport Weather Effects Experiment

This year’s Super Bowl will be indoors. But both Championship games (the game the teams had to win to get to the Super Bowl) were played outdoors. The New England-Baltimore game was played in cold weather, and the Giants-49ers game was played in the rain. Does the weather affect how the game is played?

Get several footballs. Keep some dry and warm. Put some in a bucket of water, and put some in a freezer or ice chest. Then take your class out to the football field. Allow each student to try throwing a normal football. Measure how far the balls go (and in what direction). Then invite each student to throw a wet ball and/or a cold ball. Measure how far those balls go (and in what direction).

Lead a class discussion about why the balls were different to throw if they were wet or cold. Ask students: if you were a football coach, what might you do to prepare your team to throw or catch in bad weather?

Super Bowl Media Interview Activity

The Super Bowl is one of the world’s biggest media events, which makes it a perfect opportunity to teach kids about interviewing skills.

Introduce students to the basics – what types of questions to ask (or not ask), how to behave during an interview, etc. Then have students research the quarterbacks, the coaches, the halftime entertainment (Madonna) or other people involved in the game.

For example, Mark Herzlich is a first year player on the Giants who survived a battle with cancer during college and was told he might never play again. Have students write up a fictional interview in which they ask one of these people questions. They should include answers that are as accurate as possible based on their research.

To make this experience even more engaging, consider showing students footage from Super Bowl Media Day, which will be on Tuesday, January 31^st. Footage from Media Day will be broadcast on the NFL network and is also usually available online through NFL.com.

Sports Drinks & Nutrition Lesson

Many teams drink a sports drink like Gatorade during the game. For students learning about nutrition or the human body, this is an opportunity to do a little science. Why would players drink these sports drinks instead of water? Is there a difference between different brand name sports drinks – for example, Gatorade and Powerade?

The Health Behind Super Bowl Snacks

Another nutrition-oriented activity – have students put together a traditional Super Bowl party menu. It might include chicken wings, pizza, chips and dip, or desserts. Then have students determine the nutritional value of the party food. How much fat is there? How many calories? If possible, have students explore websites for Cooking Light or recipe sites like AllRecipes to find healthier alternatives for their party.

A Halftime Tribute Brainstorm

The halftime show often includes a salute to America’s Troops or a commemoration of a special occasion. Ask your students: if they were planning a halftime show, what group of people or anniversary would they want to honor and why? How would they honor them?

This could be a writing assignment or even a poster or presentation where students present their ideas in written, visual, or verbal form.

Super Bowl Statistics Activity

Football offers a natural entry point into statistics. Have students compare the stats of the two teams or the two quarterbacks playing.

How are those stats determined? Based on the stats, who should win the game? Have students write up their predictions based on the statistics, then revisit the predictions after the game.

Anatomy & Sports Injuries

Many football players suffer injuries, some of them serious. If you’re teaching health or anatomy, why not take some time to look at some of the more common injuries?

For example, what is “turf toe”? Both Tom Brady and Wes Welker of the Patriots have come back after serious knee injuries. What is it about the anatomy of the knee that makes it prone to injury in football? Why is it such a serious injury?

And of course, there is the question of concussions. What is a concussion? What are the potential long-term side effects of several concussions? How does the NFL test for concussions on the sidelines? What else could the NFL do to help players avoid concussions?

Super Bowl Commercials - A Lesson on Persuasion

Super Bowl commercials are legendary, and nowadays it’s easy to find favorite commercials of yesterday by searching YouTube. So why not use some commercials to teach a quick lesson on persuasion and advertising? For older students, you could look at persuasive language or the logic (or lack thereof) in a commercial’s argument.

For younger students, try a simpler approach: help students to recognize (in a basic way) how a commercial tries to win you over with humor, popular music, etc.

Super Bowl Commercial Writing Activity

On the other hand, writing commercials can be a great language arts assignment. Tell students to imagine a millionaire has presented them with enough money to buy a Super Bowl ad slot. Students have 30 seconds to present their ideas on a topic connected to what you’ve been studying or on a topic that is personally important to them.

With these ideas, any teacher can add a burst of Super Bowl enthusiasm to these sometimes dreary winter days.

How do you use Super Bowl excitment to inspire learning? Share in the comments section!