Test Your Survival Knowledge Program

What started as a program based around the popular book series I Survived… by Lauren Tarshis turned into a test your survival knowledge and game.  We ended up with 15 kids ranging from 3rd – 8th grade.  We started our program with 20 multiple choice questions displayed on the big screen using a PowerPoint presentation.  Each question was about a different topic, everything from gum in your hair to lion attacks!  After the kids answered all 20 questions, we went back through and I gave them the right answer and information as to why you shouldn’t do somethings that you always thought were right (like peeing on a jellyfish sting).  I created the questions from a number of books that worked perfectly for this program:

• The Ultimate Survival Guide
• The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Junior Edition
• The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Middle School
• The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Gross Junior Edition
• The Worst Case Scenario Survival Survive-o-pedia: Junior Edition

After we took our survival quiz we played a survival game.  35 cards were placed in a line across the room.  Each card had a piece of survival equipment that the kids could choose.  With three teams, each player got to pick up two cards, run back to their teammates and the next person would go.  Afterwards we gave out points for the different survival equipment.  For example, water would be 50 points, but sunscreen was only worth 20 points.  And we threw in a couple things like batteries worth 0 points, unless you also had grabbed the flashlight!  Then they were worth 30 points.  The kids had a great time choosing what they thought would be best to have in a survival situation.

Overall, I think the kids had a great time and I was really happy with how many showed up.  We may even re-do this program again in the fall for a different group of kids because we know have the PowerPoint slides and the game ready to go.  If anyone’s interested in either, please let me know and I can send you the files!