School Break Challenge Flyers (Thanksgiving, Winter, Spring Break, Summer)

School Break Challenge in 1-2-3

Maintain science learning momentum and prevent academic slide during your next Thanksgiving, Winter, Spring, and Summer Break. Leverage Penda Science to launch a fun, engaging, and competitive student challenge while stretching science instructional time and providing additional review or practice of standards.

Follow this simple 3-step process to set up and launch a successful Penda Science student challenge for your next school break!

Step 1 - Set-Up 

Identify and assign 2 low-performing standards

• Since most school breaks are 1 to 2 weeks in length, focus on reviewing no more than 2 science standards.
• Use a recent diagnostic or formative assessment to identify 2 low-performing standards. 
• Alternatively, review a recent teacher Class Mastery Report or school administrator Grade-level Mastery report to identify standards in need of additional practice or remediation.
• Assign the corresponding developing, achieving, and exceeding Penda science activities for the 2 standards identified.
• Give your school break challenge assignment a unique assignment name that will stand out in student accounts, such as Grade 5 - Thanksgiving Break Challenge, Winter Break Challenge, or Spring Break Challenge. The assignment name will be visible to students, so use this to your advantage!
• Give your school break challenge a specific start date and time as well as an end date and time, then click Finish.

Step 2 - Announce!

Incentivize & launch challenge among classes

• Decide between 2 possible frameworks to build and incentivize the challenge:
  • Option 1
    • • Reward students based on the following 3 criteria (for which students can be recognized more than once)
      • hours of engagement (for participation)
      • activities attempted (for effort)
      • activities mastered (for achievement)
  • Option 2
    • Reward students based on the number of activities they have mastered that are part of the challenge
• Once you have decided on incentive criteria, plan your prizes or rewards - such as: front of the line pass, free homework pass, extra points on a quiz or test, McDonald's gift cards, Amazon gift cards, or even a chromebook or Nintendo Switch for a school-wide give-away.
• Download a ready-made school break challenge student flyer from below to announce and publicize your school break challenge.
  • This page provides Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring Break challenge flyers that can be downloaded and further customized, then printed or electronically posted to share challenge details, access information, and incentives with students.
  • We recommend editing the document to include your school name, center ID, and student credential information, as well as any noteworthy, attention-grabbing incentives or prizes!
• All that’s left is to announce the school break challenge to your classes prior to the start of break!
  • Be sure to be up-beat, peppy, and full of energy - how you sell the challenge to your classes and students will make or break the success of your school break challenge. 
  • High energy and high enthusiasm yields high participation, high results, and high impact!

Step 3 - Reward & Celebrate 

Run a Penda report to identify class/student recognition

• Upon returning from your school break, log into your Penda Science account to run and analyze a Penda progress report.
• Click Reports on the top navigation bar.
• Use the date filters on the left to target the school break challenge start and end dates. Then, filter by grade or class.
• Use this progress report to identify students based on the incentive criteria you selected in step 2, for example:
• Sort the task hours column to honor students with the highest amount of time spent on Penda during the challenge period
• Sort the number of activities completed column to honor student effort for the most activities attempted and completed 
• Or sort the average score column or the green activities count column to honor students with the highest achievement scores
• For each challenge criteria, do 'shout-outs' to students in the top tier, for example the top 1/3rd in that category.
• If appropriate, provide students recognized with a raffle ticket to fill out and drop into a big fishbowl. 
• Students get more chances to win the drawing the more hours they put in, the more activities they attempt, and the more activities they master.
• Finally, draw names for prizes and incentive items from the fishbowl - such as in-school incentives, gift cards, or big-ticket items for a school-wide give-away.

Downloadable School Break Flyers