Flower Hill Third Graders Have Fun with Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest annual events in the United States. It draws a massive television audience and interest from coast to coast. Flower Hill Primary School third graders were recently busy preparing for the big game and day with various engaging and collaborative activities coordinated by teachers Allison Conlon and Jaime Jerome.

Students explored the history of the Super Bowl through reading and comprehension activities, solved math word problems using a football field, and worked together to design unique team jerseys. They also put their STEM skills to the test by constructing goalposts and writing about who they would love to see perform at the halftime show and why.

“The classroom was filled with learning, creativity and teamwork—just like a real championship team,” Principal Cindy Siegel said. “We are so proud of their hard work and collaboration.”

“The Super Bowl’s origins lie in the creation of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960,” according to the Organization of American Historians. “Started by a group of businessmen who wanted their own pro football franchises, but were frustrated by the NFL’s unwillingness to expand, the AFL forged ahead as an alternative league playing a more wide-open brand of football. So began a rivalry that would help propel pro football ahead of baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the country by the end of the decade.

“In 1966, after several years of competition, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Lamar Hunt, owner of the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, negotiated a merger agreement in which the two leagues would formally join together in 1970. In the meantime, the AFL and NFL champions would play each other at the end of the season and Hunt suggested calling the new game the “Super Bowl.” Though both he and Rozelle thought a better title could be found, sportswriters started using the moniker in advance of the inaugural game in January 1967 and it stuck.”