Winter Olympics 2010

Barbara J. Feldman

The first Winter Olympic Games took place in Chamonix, France in 1924 with sixteen nations participating in thirteen events in five sports. This year in Vancouver, Canada (from February 12 to February 28, 2010) there will be athletes from eighty-two nations competing in fifteen sports. The Paralympic Winter Games will follow, running from March 12 to March 21, 2010.

Infoplease: 2010 Winter Olympics

4 stars

Infoplease presents a fun mixture of Olympic history, biographies, news, trivia, quizzes, and crosswords. Have you ever heard of ski cross? It's making its Olympic debut in Vancouver. "Inspired by snowboard cross, which was introduced as an Olympic event at the Torino 2006 Games, ski cross pits four skiers against each other in a mad dash own a steep and curving course riddled with obstacles." Don't leave without trying your hand at least one of the five Olympic quizzes or four crossword puzzles.

Team USA

5 stars

My favorite clicks at the official U.S. Olympic Team site are the athlete bios, photo galleries, videos, athlete blogs organized by sport, and Real Athletes Play Fair . Real Athletes Play Fair is a media campaign promoting the value of drug-free sports. There is a great kids section featuring kids talking about what it means to play by the rules. Look for it in the left-hand navigation. Other cool clicks are the links to individual team sites, such as the USAHockey.com and USFSA,org (home of the U.S. Figure Skating Association) and the education links to offsite classroom materials.

Pocantico Hills: Winter Olympics for Kids

4 stars

The 2001 fourth grade class at Pocantico Hills School in Sleepy Hollow, New York created a fabulous Winter Olympics site that was recently updated to include the 2010 Vancouver games. The students studied the Winter Olympics, and created slide shows about the history of the winter games, and the winter sports. My favorite clicks are the Olympic Cyberhunts with fill-in the blank questions and URLs to explore for answers. Another fun section is Activities, where you'll find links to dozens of online Olympic games.

NBC Olympics

5 stars

NBC is the official Olympics television network, and is the go-to site for schedules, results and medal counts. But reasons to visit extend way beyond stats, because this terrific site is full of human interest stories, athlete bios, video gallery, and tweets and blogs listed by individual sport. New this year are widgets you can add to your own site or Google homepage that will track medals, Team USA, and provide an event schedule.

Vancouver 2010

5 stars

For kids and classroom activities, click on More 2010 Information in the main menu. There you'll find online games (whee!) and educational resources such as history of the Winter Games, stories from the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay, and a portal for teachers. The interactive games and activities introduce the mascots Sumi, Quatchi and Miga (with coloring pages, ecards, and computer wallpaper) and a sports game (the Official 2010 Minigame) that lets you be a contender in ski jumping, giant slalom or snowboard cross.