Have you ever considered creating an escape room that covers the skills or standards you have taught, but you didn’t know where to start? These engaging scenario games make reviewing skills fun for students, but they seem so complex to create. The good news is that they do not have to be. I recently created a simplified version for my upper elementary students, and they absolutely loved it. In this post, I am showing you how to make an escape room that you can tailor specifically for your students.
1. Think of a Theme and Topic
All Escape Rooms have a theme or a scenario that students are trying to get out of.
Some popular themes are holiday related such as:
- Halloween (Escape the Haunted House)
- Thanksgiving (Turkey Escape)
- St. Patricks Day (Catch the Leprechaun)
- Valentine’s Day (Unlock the Chocolate Factory)
Next, think of the subject and/or topic you will cover.
2. Come up with a Phrase
Once you know what your theme and topic will be, come up with a phrase. The length of your phrase should be determined by the amount of time you allocate for students to work on the escape room. I try to average about 3 minutes per slide.
The amount of letters in the phrase will coincide with the number of slides you will need to create for your resource.
For example:
- “Congratulations” will have a total of 15 slides
- “You did it” will have a total of 8 slides
- “You have escaped” will have a total of 14 slides
- “You made it” will have a total of 9 slides
Write the phrase on a paper and match each letter of the phrase to a number using the position it falls within the alphabet. (Ex. A = 1, B = 2, C = 3…)
For example:
- Congratulations = 3 15 14 7 18 1 20 21 12 1 20 9 15 14 19
3. Create a List of Skills to Cover
Thinking back at the subject and/or topic you want to cover, create a list of skills.
For example, if you are covering:
- Parts of Speech, you may list nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, etc.
- Nouns, you may list common nouns and proper nouns, possessive nouns, plural nouns, etc.
- Commas in sentences, you may list appositives, commas in a series, commas with conjunctions, commas in addresses, commas with quotation marks, etc.
- Subjects and Predicates, you may cover complete subjects, complete predicates, simple subjects, and simple predicates
- Commonly Confused Words, you may include words such as there, their, they’re, two, too, to, etc.
4. Write Down a List of Questions
Create a list of questions associated for each of the skills. Each question will be the title question for the slide.
Some example questions for parts of speech might be:
- Which card contains only verbs?
- Which card only displays nouns?
- Which card does not include an adjective?
Now, you are ready to start creating your cards.
5. Create a Scenario Slide with Directions
The cover slide should contain the scenario and directions. For example, a Halloween Escape Room might state:
You have walked into an abandoned house, and the door behind you has slammed shut. In order to escape, you must figure out the correct combination and phrase on the lock, but hurry, you only have 30 minutes to get out on time.
To escape, read the questions at the top of each slide. Once you have found the correct answer, write down the number found at the top of the correct card on the “Combination Slide.” Keep your numbers in order. You will receive further directions once you have written down the correct combination.
6. Create a Number Combination Slide
Create a number combination slide where students can keep track of their numbers.
7. Create Question Slides
Type your questions at the top of each slide. Then, create 4 cards on each slide. Three cards should include at least one incorrect answer and one card should include only correct answers.
Add numbers to the top of the slides. The slide with the correct answer should relate to the letter in the phrase. For example: If your phrase is “Happy Day,” the first slide should have a #8 at the top of the correct card. The second slide should have a #1 at the top of the correct card. The third slide should have a #16 at the top of the correct slide, and so forth.
8. Create the Last Mission Slide
Here, you will tell students to convert the numbers to letters of the alphabet. If you want to make it easier, you can create a key. To make it more challenging, have them convert the numbers to letters on their own.
9. Print or Share Online and HAVE FUN!
For the final step, make copies for each pair of students or upload them onto a platform like Google Classrooms, Microsoft Teams, email, or any other platform your district uses.
Have students work in pairs. Once the students believe they have answered all the slides correctly, they should write their number combination down and show it to you. If they are correct, have them match the numbers to letters in the alphabet to decipher the code. If they are incorrect, have them go back and redo it.
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That’s it! Now, you know how to make an escape room in just a few easy steps that will have your students more engaged than ever before as they review skills.
