Tis the season… and that means at EGSS it is Survivor time! Every christmas, about 10 days before the students leave for the holidays, we decide to have a little fun and do a schoolwide challenge. And this one is a game that students talk about years after they have left our school. In fact, we have high school students who went to our school years before email us wondering about how Survivor is going, what types of challenges we are doing, and who is winning. It is that memorable! I thought I would share our EGSS version of how we play Survivor and maybe that might be something that you would like to do in your own school.
I am not kidding when I say this game boosts our entire school culture for the year. Teachers and students talk about this one all year long and as soon as they hear the Survivor theme song come on, you can hear screams of joy coming from every classroom. So here is how you play:
The game officially starts on Wednesday before Christmas for us, therefore, the Monday of that week is when we start to play the music and do themed announcements. Monday, we pump them up by introducing the game and emailing the teachers directions on how to play. Each class is a tribe and each tribe has Monday and Tuesday (2 days) to build a raft and write a chant for their team. They must paddle it to the office and show their raft and do their chant to get the golden ticket to enter the official game of Survivor.
Wednesday is the first day of Survivor. We always do themed announcements in the morning and at the end of the day along with the Survivor theme music. The morning announcements usually consists of hinting some of the challenges coming their way and the end of the day announcements are tribal council where we pull names of the classes to eliminate them from the game. Each class will have their name entered in a hat. At the end of each day, I get students to come down to the office to pull names from the hat. I decide each day how many names I pull depending on how many names are left. The classes whose names are pulled are voted off the island. HOWEVER, they do have a chance to vi for immunity the next day. If they choose to vi for immunity, the class’s name that was pulled can do a schoolwide challenge in order to get back into the game. Some challenges include:
- Getting classes that are walking down the hall to play the Floor is Lava
- Eating a really sour candy like Warheads without making a face
- Setting up a fart machine in a class without the other class knowing and recording how they react
- Sneaking in to a class and being elves on the shelves without the other class know
- Singing their own class version of a Christmas Carol through the halls
- Having their teacher sing Let It Go through the halls
- Have students write SOS letters and sneak them under the doors of unsuspecting classrooms making them do challenges to save them from Exhile island
- Draw a picture of three different teachers and market them in the foyer (like the town cryer) trying to get people to guess which teacher they drew
These are just a few of the challenges we do in the school and it absolutely lights up the fun for the last couple weeks before Christmas. At the end of the last day, the last three classes that are pulled are the winners and they get some class parties and fun.
Schoolwide challenges can be such a great way to bring a school together to have some fun. Teachers are really into it as well. It brings about community with a little bit of competition. I would love to hear what challenges and fun you do in your school. Be sure to let us know in our private facebook community called Principals and Leadership.
I also have a free download that is all about ways to engage leaders and teachers nat your leadership table. You can download it here!
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