PROGRAM OVERVIEW

CHALLENGE ISLAND

MISSION STATEMENT

At the core of Challenge Island is the belief that learning and fun

are not meant to be mutually exclusive entities. Children’s

inherent imagination should be utilized as a central gateway to

their education. The engaging, enriching and wonderfully

whimsical, Challenge Island quests joyfully ignite each child’s

creative and critical thinking creating a vast learning potential.

Come Outthink, Outsmart, and Outplay on Challenge Island!

What is a Challenge Island

Challenge?

It’s a Cool, Creative, and Whimsical Goal Kids may be learning during Challenge Island, but it doesn’t feel at all like school.

Their creative thinking tasks range from dreaming up roller coasters to inventing new

ice-cream flavors to building bridges over “shark-infested” waters. Each of our

challenges appeal to a child’s natural curiosity and spark their inherent imagination.

It’s a Fun and Exciting Opportunity Some might call it problem solving, but on Challenge Island we think of it as an

opportunity to flex and strengthen cognitive and creative muscles. Do mountain

climbers look at mountains as obstacles? No. They see them as a challenge waiting

to be conquered. When they finally reach the top, looking down at the winding path

they took to get there, the feeling of pride and success is, well, mountainous.

It’s an Open-Ended Question Every one of our challenges has infinite solutions. You will never see two tribes come

up with exactly the same product. Every child and group will interpret and tackle a

challenge differently and that’s exactly what it is all about!

It’s a Child-Driven (Rather than Teacher-Driven) Journey Sure we could give kids a blueprint with the answers. But on Challenge Island we believe that students have the ability to create their own blueprint and carve their

own path. A well laid foundation and a few key materials become springboards toward a higher level of problem solving and endless creative potential. This

approach helps to empower our students not only for today but well into their future.

The Power of

Cooperative Learning Challenge Island utilizes the cooperative learning technique. This

successful teaching strategy is built on the philosophy that the best

learning occurs when students are actively engaged in the learning

process and working in collaboration with their peers to accomplish a

shared goal. In a cooperative learning environment, the focus moves

from teacher-centered to student-centered education. Small tribes of

children, made up of students with different ability levels, take on

challenges as a unified group. Each member of the tribe is responsible

not only for doing what he or she should, but also for helping other tribe

members succeed, thus creating an atmosphere of team spirit, respect,

mutual goals and pride in collaborative achievements.

Research suggests that the cooperative learning allows students to

learn with greater depth and complexity while enjoying the experience

even more. Children feel less intimidated by tasks when they’re part of a

team, and tend to work with greater intensity for longer periods of time.

Cooperative learning fosters essential social skills in children while

teaching them how to cooperate and collaborate with others a skill they

will use throughout their lives.

Positive Classroom

Management Challenge Island provides a foundation

for positive classroom management.

THE LAWS OF

CHALLENGE ISLAND

The Challenge Island classroom is filled

with excitement of children creating

and collaborating with their tribe mates.

However, rules and boundaries are

needed to ensure the safety and

learning of every child.

The “Laws of the Island”

set ground rules in a positive way.

TRIBAL STARS

Tribes earn stickers for cooperation,

successful challenges, cleaning up and infinite

other positive actions. It is up to the teacher to

decide how to distribute the stars, although

suggestions are provided in the lesson plans.

Stars are distributed at closing tribal council.

To keep the focus positive rather than

competitive, tell students that all stickers will

be added at the end to determine if they’ve

earned their final tribal celebration.

(Of course they get the celebration,

but we’ll keep that a secret!)

The Challenge Island Totem Pole promotes the

scientific method or fundamental process used by all

great scientists and inventors along the way to their

discoveries and inventions.

This process is incorporated into every

Challenge Island lesson.

Every Challenge Island unit takes place on a unique thematic

island. The islands have locations that correspond with the

challenges students will experience each week.

Building Content Into

Every CI Lesson While the kids are having so much fun they don’t even realize

that they are learning with every Challenge Island lesson.

The following tools help teachers facilitate the learning process.

The K-W-L Chart: K-W-L stands for what we KNOW, what we WANT to know and

what we LEARNED. It provides Challenge Island lessons with

structure and highlights the underlying purpose.

The Wacky Vocabulary Chart:

Content-related vocabulary is introduced and incorporated into

Challenge Island. These new words are displayed on the wacky

vocabulary chart and used in context throughout the lesson.

The Real World Connection Cards: Every Challenge Island lesson is rooted in real-world applications.

Our connection cards link classroom concepts and activities with

famous landmarks and other real-world places and things.

Blooms Taxonomy Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of learning

objectives within education proposed in 1956. It is now

considered to be a foundational and essential element

within the education community. The Challenge Island

curriculum has elementary students thinking at amazingly

high-levels, considering their young age, helping them

apply these skills to school and beyond.

Blooms Taxonomy

categorizes thinking

skills from

lowest to highest.

Blow Carts