The Denver Broncos won football’s ultimate prize on Sunday: the Super Bowl. It was the 50th anniversary of the big game that is held every year at this time.
The final game of the year–this year it was between the Broncos and the Carolina Panthers–on “Super Bowl Sunday” is something that many people get very excited about. They often gather together to watch the game, devour special food like nachos or chicken wings, and root for their favourite team.
Even the commercials and the “half-time show” — a special concert held during the break in the middle of the game — get people excited.
The Broncos beat the Panthers 24 to 10 in what was arguably not the most exciting game in NFL (National Football League) history. The game was won more by a great defense than by a great offense, according to some commentators. That means that the Broncos were successful in preventing the Panthers from scoring. Then, when the Broncos were able to score, they pulled ahead. The Broncos’ defence was led by Von Miller, who was later named the game’s “Most Valuable Player,” or MVP.
It was a big anniversary for the Super Bowl (the 50th) and a big win for Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning–his 200th career victory. Some people say that he may retire after this, but he hasn’t yet said what he intends to do. In this case, “retire” means stop playing football professionally after a long and successful career.
The half-time show was very colourful this year, and featured three big-name performers: Chris Martin (lead singer of the band Coldplay), singer Bruno Mars and singer Beyoncé. Young people poured out onto the field to dance and sing along, during the performance. At one point during the show, images of famous Superbowl half-time singers from past years, such as Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston were projected.
As always, in the United States, many funny commercials were played during the Superbowl. Canadians can’t see most of the “best” commercials–they get their own commercials which typically aren’t as big-budget (expensive to make) and don’t feature celebrities that are as popular as the American ones.
Links
Note about the commercials: We aren’t posting a direct link to the commercials here, because those links take you to YouTube, where some content (comments and ads as well as posts) can come up that is not kid-friendly. However, many of the commercials themselves are pretty funny and worth a look (under adult supervision).
Christopher Walken closet (KIA ad)
http://boingboing.net/2016/02/08/walken-closet-was-my-favorite.html
Above is a link to the “Christopher Walken closet” ad on BoingBoing.net. It’s a hilarious ad. BoingBoing is not labelled as “kid-friendly” per se, but this page should be okay for kids (we can’t guarantee anything, of course). Right underneath the “Christopher Walken closet” is the excellent Helen Mirren anti-drunk driving ad — it contains no swears (other than pillock, which I’m not sure counts as a swear), but it is a bit “edgy.” However, it is an amazing message and there’s lots to talk about within it. Adults should, of course, watch both ads before using them with kids.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
One reason that people watch the Super Bowl is to see the advertisements. Companies spend millions of dollars in order to promote their product for a few seconds. Why do you think they choose to do this?
What at are the characteristics of an advertisement? How are ads different from television shows or movies?
Reading Prompt: Extending Understanding
The half-time show is often loved by viewers as much as the football game itself. If you could design the half-time show, who would perform, what would they do, and how would you design the stage so it was spectacular and impressive?
Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME: Reading: 1.6).
Intermediate
Extend understanding of texts, including increasingly difficult and complex texts, by connecting ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME: Reading: 1.6).
Language Feature: Roman Numerals
Roman numerals are used to show numbers. For example X is 5 in Roman numerals, IX is 4 and XI is 6.
Look up the Roman numerals for the following numbers: 100, 20, 19, 37, 50 and 55.
