Courses · Electives · Grades 4–12
Games & Sports
Why do people everywhere play games? How does a golfer, a bowler or a volleyball server make the ball obey? What does a chess player share with a general and a football coach? Why do winning teams keep taking the high-percentage shot? Four electives answer these questions through real history, real physics and real mathematics, and every lesson sends the student out to roll, throw, swing, play and keep score.
Grades 8–12 · one semester each
Grades 8–12
Playing the Odds
Why the best players and coaches win by taking the high-percentage shot and limiting risk: probability, expected value, sports analytics, game theory and the odds at the game table, from Pascal and Fermat to the fourth-down chart.
Grades 8–12
Sports & Games of the World
The story of play: the Royal Game of Ur, Senet, mancala, Go and chess, the ancient and modern Olympics, how football, baseball, basketball and tennis got their rules, and games played on every continent.
Grades 8–12
Body Mechanics of Sport
How the body makes a ball go where you want: levers, torque, the kinetic chain, spin and follow-through in bowling, tennis, golf, volleyball, baseball and soccer, with drills at home.
Grades 8–12
Tactics & Strategy
The principles shared by the chessboard, the battlefield and the playing field: position, tempo, concentration of force, the feint and the counterattack, from Cannae and Sun Tzu to the zone defense.
Grades 4–7
Grades 4–7
Playing the Odds
Ages 9–13: chances, dice and spinners, the shot chart, and when to play it safe.
Grades 4–7
Sports & Games of the World
Ages 9–13: games from every continent, the first Olympics, and how today’s sports began.
Grades 4–7
Body Mechanics of Sport
Ages 9–13: balance, swing, throw, kick and roll, with safe practice drills.
Grades 4–7
Tactics & Strategy
Ages 9–13: thinking ahead in checkers, chess and team games, and famous plans from history.
How every lesson works
The electives stand alone and can be taken in any order. A Grades 8–12 elective is one semester of 30 lessons in 6 units, with worked examples, practice sets, unit tests, a midterm and a final. A Grades 4–7 elective runs 32 weekly lessons in 8 units.
- Warm-up. A quick roll, throw, guess or prediction.
- Watch. A hand-picked YouTube video from a mathematician, a governing body, a museum or a good coach, with a note on when to watch it.
- Learn. The story, how they figured it out, the principle, and how it plays out on the field or at the table.
- Picture study. A public-domain painting or photograph, such as Anguissola’s The Chess Game, Eakins’s rowers or an early baseball photograph, to look at closely and talk about.
- Project. The student plays, measures and records: dice trials, shooting percentages, a swing filmed and checked, a strategy tested over twenty games.
- Scorebook. Tallies, shot charts, frequency tables, diagrams and “what I would decide and why.”
Fair play and providence. Scripture appears lightly, with verses on running to win, striving lawfully, counting the cost, and on time and chance. Probability is taught for making decisions, never for wagering. Games of chance appear only to show why the house always wins.
Nothing needs to be bought beyond dice, a ball and household items. Each unit also lists optional books and family games.
Videos open on YouTube. Each one was checked for the lesson and for the content, but YouTube shows its own recommendations and ads around them, so parents should stay nearby.