Have you ever played an escape the classroom game with your students?
If not, please please please play!
Because it is not just super fun but also you can cover so many topics at the same time and kids don’t even recognize that they are actually studying :)))
What is an Escape the Classroom Game?
First of all, if you need to know what an escape room is actually; you can watch this Escape Room video of James Corden and Ariana Grande 🙂
Yes, as you can see in the video, you go into a house and they lock you in!.. There are secret items and passwords you need to find to open the doors / locks to get out of the rooms and escape the house. So, as you may guess this is what we try to do in our lessons. We design a lesson where kids need to solve puzzles, find passwords and crack codes to finish an activity. Some teachers use lots of props to design a lesson like the real escape rooms: They use boxes, locks and real items to make it look like or feel like a real experience. But in my case, this is so time consuming and as I don’t have enough time to carry all of those materials from a class to another one… I just do it ONLINE!
The game that I have designed is on Google Drive 🙂 No boxes, no locks… Just Google Drive… You just need the Game Pack, couple of tablets and your kids… 🙂 That’s it.
So, I wanted to share one of the Breakout Edu games I have prepared for our 4th graders (CEFR A1 – A2 Level).
This game is based on a READING activity. It’s a reading comprehension pack. You will see how many questions kids will have to answer 🙂 But they will not complain as it is a game :))
I have used an article from Richmond Publishing’s course book Thumbs Up 4 (Unit 6 – My Vacation Journal by Isabel)
Here is the article: (ready to print pdf file) HERE.
Second file is the GAME PACK. Here you can see how it looks like:
- You need 40-50 minutes.
- Download the Article and Can you Break the Code Escape the Classroom Game Pack pdf files. They are both ready to print. So just print them out (My advice: Don’t print them double sided as it will be harder to read and follow the sections).
- Group your students. (2-5 ideally)
- Give them mobile phones or tablets or i Pads which have QR Code Reader apps downloaded. (It is easier if the devices have QR Code reader apps in them but if they don’t that’s not a problem as there is also a web link they can reach the game).
- Put all the papers (Article + Game Pack) in a big envelope (this is optional of course you can just hand the files to your students or even find a more creative way to give the papers 🙂
- Important Detail: In this pack, there are 2 separate pages with speaking cards and passwords. These pages are for the teacher. Do not give them to your students. During the game at some sections kids will have to answer some questions so that they can get passwords directly from you.
Before playing the game I suggest you to scan the code and reach the game and play it yourself (or just have a look) to foresee what your students may ask you during the game 🙂
This is what I say to my students: “Whatever you need is in the envelope! Open it and find the “QR Code” page. When you scan it, you will reach the game. Answer the questions to find your CODES. You will need those codes to open the sections and finish the game. Good luck! 🙂 ”
Look how dear @miss.ann.says Anna Solodovnicova applied this game in her classroom!
Anna says: “It was a blast! Everyone enjoyed it! Even if the team didn’t win, they had a great time of adventure! I will do it again and surely not just once!”