The first thing I thought when I saw the headline was “I can’t believe that a gymnast like her tells her experiences about sport in two books. And even, if those books are for children”. So, I start to read the article and I see that she created a main character named “Olympia”, as a reference to the Olympic Games, so children, only reading the name of the character can discover what is her goal: reach the Olympic Games.

Using Olympia, Almudena told her story and how she became the best Spanish gymnast (she reached the finals of four Olympic Games: Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008) and gives tips about how to decorate the maillots, the make-up and the hair styles.

How we can use that books in our future classes?

That article made me think about how we can show our future students about healthy habits and promote sports in class. This kind of books are awesome for reach this objective because we have a story, specially adapted for children, with pictures, so they we can be focused only in the pictures if our students don’t have the reading skills learnt.

Also, that stories talks about other things rather than the main story. It’s like a “cross-curricular” book, because we have literature in the story and arts and crafts in the tips Almudena gives about her maillots.

One disadvantage and a great solution for that

One disadvantage of those books is that can be only focused on girls, because it can be a little bit strange (I don’t say impossible) to see a boy decorating a maillot or thinking about making-up, but we can adapt it to them!

For example, changing the name of the main character and giving our students the chance to create their own story about a gymnast. For example, while I was writing that I thought about a character named “Athos” (Yes, like the Musketeer, but can be a reference to Athens) who wants to be at the final of the swimming competition of the Olympic Games of Tokyo 2020, so he starts practising for it and reach, in 2015, the Spanish national championship, so his dream begins there. Can you imagine of creating a story like this at class?

A conclusion and a thought

Just to conclude, also, we can think about having in our class a meeting with the author of the book, Almudena Cid, and our students can talk to her and ask her about how she reached those four finals and how she prepared for that. Or, we can invite Gervasio Deferr, and ask him the same questions. These are just dreams that can be unreal in a real class, but if we didn’t dream about improving our classes, who will do it for us?.

Link to the news, if you want to read the whole article (in Spanish): http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2289589/0/almudena-cid-narra-vivencia/trayectoria-deportiva-dos/cuentos-infantiles/