Can Your Students Escape the Classroom? - Engaging Your Class with Escape Rooms

The end of the school year is one of the hardest times to engage our students. One way that I engage my students at the end of the school year is with room escape games. At the beginning of the last month of school, we write ESCAPE ROOM in bold letters on our calendar for one of the last days of school. Students know that misbehavior can keep them from the Escape Room, so this helps give them a carrot to work towards during those difficult to focus spring days.

The Escape Room itself takes us about 2 hours and it's a very engaging 2 hours for the class. Even those who do not escape tell me they had fun trying. I have tried to make the experience as similar to an escape room puzzle that you would pay for as an adult, while still making it educational and appropriate for my kiddos.

For the escape room, I break my class into 3 groups. Each group has colored clues to follow. The clues I use are all math problems for topics they should have mastered. Once they solve the clues, they use them to unlock envelopes. Inside some of the envelopes are harder problems. The answers to these problems help students to unlock other envelopes, which have brainteaser type problems in them. These brainteasers lead them to the prize, which unlocks the classroom.

Students work on so many skills with the escape room. They do math. They work as a group. They strategize. They divide and conquer. I love watching the real thinking that happens. I also love that they think it's a party when they're showing me their thinking much more than on any test I've ever given!

Right now I have escape rooms available for 2nd grade math review and 3rd grade math review in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I hope to get some more made up during this summer vacation. What type of escape room would you like to use with your students?