Chase Away Summer Brain Drain with Brain Chase
It’s that time of year when I begin to hear the phrase “summer brain drain” from fellow parents who are concerned with keeping their kids from losing valuable skills over the summer break. Kids want to enjoy summer activities and take a break from studies, yet parents want to encourage learning so that it doesn’t become viewed as a chore. Brain Chase has found a way to combat summer brain drain with an engaging program that makes learning a real summertime adventure.
We homeschool year-round, but we still tend to take a lighter schedule over the summer to avoid burnout. As I’ve been reading about Brain Chase and looking into what they offer, I think it’s a perfect summer learning tool for us. We love treasure hunts anyway and frequently make up our own to do at home, so the opportunity to participate in a real treasure hunt online and combine it with educational fun is right up our alley.
Look at the cool loot we received to get us started: a compass and decoder ring! (New but similar tools will be available for the 2015 session.)
What Is Brain Chase?
- 5-week online summer adventure learning challenge for 2nd through 8th graders (or ages 6-16 approximately)
- A massive global treasure hunt powered by reading, writing and math
- A learning adventure to prevent summer brain drain
- A motivational tool for getting kids to do online academic work during the summer
- A personalized learning platform
- A hunt for a golden mechanical treasure
- A $10,000 scholarship and trophy
Why Brain Chase?
- Startling research shows that kids lose more ground academically over the summer than one might expect.
- A 2011 RAND study found that by the end of summer, students perform, on average, one to two months behind where they left off in the spring.
- 94% of parents agree that Brain Chase helped their children stay sharp over the summer. (From a survey of families who participated in the 2014 challenge.)
- 5 weeks of structured challenges on external reading and math websites
- Weekly writing exercises with feedback from credentialed teachers
- Weekly progress reports emailed to parents
- Exclusive access to an original animated adventure series loaded with hidden puzzles and clues
- 3 adventure tools mailed to your home to help solve special bonus challenges
- Participation in a massive global treasure hunt for a golden trophy containing the key to a safe deposit box holding $10,000
How Does Brain Chase Work?
1. START THE CHASE
At 9 a.m. ET on Monday, June 22, 2015, Brain Chase: The Sunstone of Cortés begins. Adventurers log in to watch the first animated webisode and meet Mae Merriweather, the star of the show. Then they dive into their first week of learning challenges. A proprietary (patent pending) learning management system – the “Dashboard” – tracks each student’s progress as they journey through the 5-week challenge.
2. UNLOCK THE ADVENTURE
Each week the adventurers have four tasks: read for 15 minutes per day, write one journal entry, earn 10,000 points on Khan Academy, and do one bonus challenge. When they’re done, they unlock the next webisode, which contains hidden pictures, numbers, and riddles to help them guess the treasure’s location.
3. FOLLOW THE STORY
Mae Merriweather and her friends from the Grayson Academy of Antiquities are hot on the trail the mysterious Sunstone of Cortés. To find it, they travel to the Himalayas, dive off the coast of Greece, and solve riddles. But there is more to the quest — and treasure — than they realize.
4. FIND THE BURIED TREASURE
The hunt for the Sunstone isn’t just fiction – there is a real golden Sunstone of Cortés and $10,000 buried somewhere on Earth. Every 24 hours, adventurers can log in to enter their guess of the treasure’s location. The first adventurer to guess the location within a two-mile radius travels with his/her family to the treasure site to claim the gold.
Sunstone of Cortés
The 2015 Brain Chase challenge is to find the Sunstone of Cortés, a mysterious calendar stolen from the Aztec empire by Hernan Cortés in the 1500s. Kids join Mae Merriweather, her brother Max, athletic Sean Drake, and former nemesis Savannah Bryce to find the fictional Sunstone of Cortés… and the real one!
Rosetta Stone partners with Brain Chase!
All Brain Chase registrants will now have the opportunity to choose to participate in a language module as part of their online academic work. The language module, if selected, will replace the writing module. Students will be required to complete 2 lessons (a total of a little over an hour) each week in order to fulfill their language requirement and unlock the next episode. Students will be allowed to choose from 30+ languages when they register, and will have a week at the beginning of the program in which to switch languages if they prefer. Rosetta Stone will be part of the all-inclusive pass to the best online curriculum providers that comes with Brain Chase registration.
What platforms will kids be able to do their learning on? PC, mobile device?
This will work on the major PC browsers, as well as iPads. This summer it will not yet be available for mobile phones. But it’s hard to do much writing and math on a mobile phone anyway!
Does Brain Chase have accommodations for children with severe dyslexia or other learning disabilities?
One of the great things about Brain Chase and our partner platforms is they completely can be customized to the academic level of your student. Last summer, we had a number of students with severe learning disabilities whose interest in academics really came alive with this program. Each student can read at their reading level by selecting their level through myON (a digital library with more than 5,000 books). If they’re in high school, they can select a second grade reading level, or if they’re in second grade and want to read Moby Dick, they could do that. It truly is a one size fits all. The bonus challenges and treasure hunt is the same for everyone, but everything else can be completely customized to meet the individual student’s level.
Is there a test to place kids in the proper “level” at the beginning or does it just start out based on their age and where they should be?
Khan Academy does a pre-test to help students begin in the right place. For reading, participants can choose their own book. The myON reading platform even gives beginning readers the option of having the books read TO them.
Who is eligible to win?
We do have a promotional aspect to this program, and therefore we have to follow promotional laws. The winner can be from any one of 48 states, excluding Maryland and Colorado. Those exclusions have to do with the promotion laws in those two states. (Kids in Maryland and Colorado can still participate in Brain Chase – do the assignments and work on the clues – but they’re not eligible to win the grand prize. We are working with both states now to bring them into the fold for summer 2016. However, if a kid from Maryland or Colorado is the first to guess the correct location, although they can’t be the official winner, we will make sure they are recognized and receive a gift for their accomplishment!) We can also have winners from the UK, Mexico and Canada (excluding Quebec).
What do the kids get out of participating?
- 5 weeks of structured challenges on external reading and math websites
- Weekly writing exercises with feedback from credentialed teachers
- Weekly progress reports emailed to parents
- Exclusive access to an original animated adventure series loaded with hidden puzzles and clues
- 3 adventure tools mailed to your home to help solve special bonus challenges
- Participation in a massive global treasure hunt for a golden trophy containing the key to a safe deposit box holding $10,000
What does it cost to participate?
Brain Chase offers their regular pricing package ($199 for the first registration, and then $100 for each sibling), along with a premium pricing package that will include Brain Chase registration plus a Brain Chase-branded adventure backpack, a Brain Chase t-shirt and Sunstone of Cortés patch ($249 for the first registration, and then $149 for each sibling). Later in the summer, these items will be available for a la carte purchase. You’ll be able to find the details on the website soon. They have been gracious and offered my readers a 15% DISCOUNT using the code: DESTINY15.
Also, I get to giveaway one free registration! Just enter in the Rafflecopter below:
FTC Disclaimer: I was offered a complimentary registration and compensation in exchange for sharing news about Brain Chase. My opinions are entirely my own and I only recommend products or services I would use with my own family.
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