Back to school sales, back to school planning, back to school shopping - it feels like my world right now surrounds around the back to school season right now. Is anyone else there?  In addition to preparing for the Teachers Pay Teachers 2 Day Back to School Sale, which is going on now (Aug 1 & Aug 2, 2018), I have been putting the finishing touches on my Back to School Escape Room. I'm going to be using this with my classroom  AFTER I have taught all of my procedures and routines. This will be our final "back to school" activity before heading into the heavy beast of curriculum, but I wanted to have it finished before I get back into the daily routine of school on Monday.

Now normally, I try out every resource I sell in my classroom BEFORE posting it on Teachers Pay Teachers. However, I wanted to make sure that others benefited from this highly engaging back to school escape room this year. So I decided to go ahead and list it early, and then leave it FREE - just for the month of August. My hope is that other teachers will try it out and let me know if they find any glitches. I can then fix any glitches before it becomes a paid product on September 1st. ​ So if you or your colleagues want to be a trial classroom for my Back to School Escape Room, please download it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store BEFORE September 1st. Then after you have completed the activity with your kids, please send me an e-mail at the address provided in the escape room to let me know how it went!

Here's hoping your back to school season goes well! It's going to be the best year yet!

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!

The year is coming to a close. I personally have 8 more teaching days. Rather than allow my students to check out, I am challenging them to use everything we have learned this year and apply it to something fun. I recently went to an Escape Room for my friends' birthday, and let me tell you it was a blast. We had so much fun that I decided I must try to make one of these for my students. The results are my Pirate themed Math Escape Room for 3rd grade. 

My kids loved this activity so much that I am currently working on one for grammar and for reading as well. What skills would you like to see covered in an Escape Room? This is definitely going to be my summer project, so leave me a comment telling me what you'd like to see and I'll try to work on it.