The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

The Sanborn Elementary School in Massachusetts is still reeling with excitement from their collaborative big event, Math Survivor.  This from The Andover Post:

"Kindergarten through fifth grade broke into "tribes," as contestants on the show do, to complete Survivor-themed math problems and challenges last Friday morning. In between math problems, tribes could try a surprise bug- eating challenge - like true contestants scrounging for food in remote locales - but the bugs at Sanborn were gummi worms.

Each tribe came up with a name and designed a tribal flag, which students brought to schoolwide "tribal council" ceremonies to begin and end the game. Sanborn staff got into the excitement, wearing tropical attire for the day.

In the end, every classroom received a prize, picking an extra recess, an ice-cream party or a movie with popcorn.

"The enthusiasm was phenomenal. The kids were so excited to work on math, and work together with their classmates on math challenges. There was a great energy," said Principal Patricia Barrett."

We would have like to have seen this in action.  Any utube/vimeo on this?

It's great to see a collaboration of parents and teachers while associating real-life Math problems with fun and activities.  Sure beats some of those contrived field day events.  The two creators of this event were motivated:

"MacDonald is an engineer and Patel has a background in finance. The woman organized Sanborn Elementary's first Math Survivor challenge three years ago, as a way to prepare students for the MCAS but also meet a void they saw in curriculum enrichment.

Schools have science fairs and art shows, but never events centered around math, said Patel.

"We wanted to put an emphasis on math, and make it not such a frightening thought. We wanted to bring in something that made math fun and more approachable," said Patel."