Ready to take your #EggDashChallenge to new heights? Grab a Chug Jug and squad up!
If you’re new to the blog, welcome! I’m John. Thanks for dropping by. In less than a week’s time, the #EggDashChallenge has been an unbelievable hit in schools and classrooms around the globe — with the original video racking up 70K+ views (!!!) and new game variants popping up in dozens of states across the US and in four different countries all over the world! The #EggDashChallenge is truly taking on a life of its own as teachers are creating everything from massive outdoor egg hunts to human games of Hungry Hungry Hippos. And there are SO. MANY. ways to apply different elements of more nuanced game-inspired tweaks to really add new layers of luck, strategy and skill to the already high-energy core activity.
Today’s post was inspired by a few lucky finds in the toy aisle at Wal-Mart, and a thought provoking Twitter conversation with Jon Spike — a phenomenal teacher and a guru for all things related to classroom gamification. I’ll let him catch us up to speed:
John – let me lead by saying I’m a big fan of your ideas and materials. Quick thought on this one – it needs more meaningful choices. Right now grabbing random eggs doesn’t appeal to the gamer in me. What about separate baskets of eggs based on question difficulty perhaps?
— Jonathan Spike (@Mr_JSpike) March 23, 2019
Excellent points all around.
To recap:
The original #EggDashChallenge video was designed as a teaching tool during a full day of training to show educators just how easy it could be to use a simple game mechanic (“Draw a new question at random each time you solve a question”) as a springboard into deeper and more playful learning. In effect, it’s the same fundamental principle that underlies the more comprehensive #QRBreakIN approach to a “REVERSE Escape Room,” where students compete in teams to solve asynchronous puzzles in an effort to crack a series of challenges unique to each station that they select. As teachers, we get to design the “menu” of learning options for our students — and so we can take comfort in the knowledge that regardless of which option they pick (or in which order they go through these items), we know whatever they choose will be a “healthy option.”
Still, it’s nice that the game-inspired design offers immediate feedback along with a high energy dash for new knowledge. There’s something very powerful about seeing even the smallest signs of your growth! Likewise, this game-based micro-credentialing helps students start to get a sense that they are truly “leveling up” their experience or skill trees, which helps build confidence as they prepare to tackle more ambitious tasks that might lie ahead. I especially like this because, as Doug Lemov writes in Teach Like a Champion 2.0:
“In my classroom, the reward for correct answers will always be more challenging questions.”
Which brings us to the point of today’s blog post.
All this stuff got me thinking: could we keep the same egg-citement from the core activity while taking our #EggDashChallenge to the next level by introducing elements of theming, story, choice, chance, strategy and skill?
Game on, y’all!
Welcome to The Fortnite Review Battle Royale! Infinitely adaptable to any course or content area, and the best part is — you don’t even have to know the first thing about Fortnite to play along!
SETUP:
Divide students into teams of 4-5. Number all of your boxes. Place one purple llama card per numbered box (or plastic egg, or envelope etc.). Students will select one box to solve back at their desk group at a time. They should always return the purple prompt question to the box once they have completed it.
Place one white power-up card in each box at the start of the game (to serve as a hidden reward for the first team to solve that station’s challenge). The first student group to solve this challenge gets to keep the power-up item inside, and use it against their rival teams!
MATERIALS NEEDED:
- Envelopes or small boxes
- Building blocks
- Dice (role playing game dice work really well!)
If you are scaffolding questions by difficulty, it may help to color code stations accordingly and ask teams to collect (x) number of each level of question before the game is over. If you are using stations of varying difficulty levels, consider using role playing game dice and awarding a higher sided dice roll (d8, d12 etc) for color coded stations with higher valued questions.
Student teams collect building supplies based on the roll value of their dice. You can omit the physical build and simply tally points per team based on dice rolls — but the real fun of the activity is watching those towers come to life! Students will be motivated to work harder to earn more building supplies.
For building block materials, you can use Jenga blocks, KAPLA blocks, LEGO bricks, playing cards, or pretty much anything else you’d like.
GAMEPLAY:
Have students solve one station at a time, call the teacher over to confirm their answer, roll the corresponding dice when they’ve gotten an answer correct, and collect (x) building supplies to go along with what they’ve rolled. This adds a fun element of chance to the game! The more stations a team can solve, the more building materials the team can collect. The team with the highest tower when time expires wins the game!
TEMPLATES:
Want to adapt this activity for your classroom?
Click here to save a local copy of the default activity templates!
