Turkish Sports & Soccer Game

Turks enjoy many of the same sports the rest of the world enjoys. Several, including Mehmet Okur
and Hedo Türkoðlu, have become NBA stars here in the U.S (see “Famous Turks” on page
11). And while Turkey identifies with the sport of football (soccer), like most countries around
the globe, the Kirkpinar Grease-Wrestling Championships
celebrate Turkey’s most time-honored sport.
Other spectator sports include the “Camel” Classic
Motor Racing Series, the Alanya International
Triathlon, Istanbul’s state-of-the-art Grand Prix
racing, horse racing at the Veli Efendi Hippodrome in
Istanbul… and even grass skiing!
For your Turkish classroom soccer tournament, of course, the highest
score wins! Enlarge and make copies of the soccer player below, and
allow each student to color their player and decorate their player’s
jersey with an emblem related to Turkey. On your classroom wall or bulletin board, create a huge graph with the
numbers 1 to 10 running up the left-hand side of the graph. With masking tape on the back, place each of your
students’ soccer players across the bottom of the board. Cut out the Turkish math equations below, and fold them
so they can’t be seen. After practicing their Turkish numbers (see page
20), allow students to take turns choosing a folded equation. If they are
able to recognize the Turkish numbers and solve the equation,
their player moves up and increases their “score” to that
number. The first player to “score” 10 points
becomes the tournament champion!