Courtesy Photo From left to right, Sanborn Elementary students Sofia Dziesinski, Riley Johnson, Gage Soltysiak, Jackson Rings, and Nathan Mulvena, and Sanborn Elementary Principal Kori Knudson pose in front of an Imagine Math progress board. The students at Sanborn Elementary School received first place in the 2024 Imagine Learning Michigan Math Cup Championship.

OSSINEKE — Students at Alpena Public School’s Sanborn Elementary have gone above and beyond to capture first place in the 2024 Imagine Learning Michigan Math Cup Championship.

The Imagine Learning Math Cup Championship is a state-wide competition that looks at which elementary school passes the most Imagine Math lessons in a school year.

According to Sanborn Elementary School Principal Kori Knudson, each Sanborn teacher’s goal for the week is to dedicate 60 minutes a week to Imagine Math courses; each teacher was free to determine how they achieved that goal.

“Our goal each week is that students access Imagine Math for 60 minutes throughout the week,” Knudson said. “Some teachers choose to do that every day. Some teachers think that out, maybe two 30-minute blocks, or three 20-minute blocks, but the structure has stayed the same.”

Sanborn students document their achievements on a whiteboard that hangs in a hallway for everyone in the school to see. Sanborn also illustrates student achievements with the use of a progress board located in its main hallway.

Each student has a character on the whiteboard that they get to customize and move after each math course that they pass. The board is separated into different layers with each segment representing a certain number of lessons passed with the bottom layer being 30 lessons passed and the top layer being 150.

Every school year has a different theme for the board, with this year’s theme being The Amazing Race.

“Our students here at Sanborn have an Imagine Math whiteboard that tracks and monitors all of their math lessons,” Knudson said. “Each student has a character that they get to decorate and for each lesson that they pass, they get them to add a gem to their character. We actually called this year’s theme The Amazing Race so we have students going through the four different hemispheres.”

According to Knudson, the announcement of Sanborn’s achievement has been a big motivator for students and reinforces the benefits that the Imagine Math program has for their school.

“I think that winning certainly motivated our students to finish out the year strong,” Knudson said. “It also has just reinforced to our staff, and to our families, that this program really does work in supporting students with their math skills and the ability to apply these skills. So we have seen how this program has made a positive impact on our data and our scores and this just further reinforces that.”

Knudson states that the students will be receiving their trophy for the competition later in the school year.