Escape Rooms caught my attention a couple of years ago. I saw friends post pictures of weekend outings where they proudly announced they’d escaped! Then, I heard students telling me about the escape rooms that were doing in their science class. Intrigued, I decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about. So, I broke out an escape room all about the Growth Mindset. And just like that, I was hooked.
If you’ve never used this activity in your classroom, it’s a simple twist on the physical escape rooms people visit for fun. An escape room activity consists of a mystery or challenge, some classwork, and then using the answers from your work to crack some codes to solve the mystery.
Students love escape rooms! I’m sure that they love escape rooms for similar reasons to why people love games on their phone. You get a little emotional boost when you crack the code. That little emotional boost gives students a little motivation to keep doing their math work. By adding the code cracking part to the activity, engagement increases.
In this article we’ll share:
- A break down what escape rooms look like
- A FREE digital escape room
- Tips and tricks for success
- Where to find escape rooms for middle school math topics
Let’s dive in!
A Walk-through of a Digital Math Escape Room
I think the best way to learn about this activity, and what it looks like when using with students, is to go through an example.
Set-up with digital math escape rooms is a cinch. It’s a completely digital activity with little prep- so there’s no copying or cutting. First, as the teacher you’ll make a copy of the escape room in Google Drive. Then, you’ll assign the escape room to your students. When using Google Classroom, you’ll want to choose “Make a copy for each student.” This will generate an unique copy for each of your students.
I build my escape rooms as a presentation in Google Slides. However, students don’t use it in presentation mode. Instead, students write directly on the slides, using the slides like a work mat. This way, students’ work is saved as they complete it, and they turn the presentation in at the end as the artifact of their work.
The Mission
To get started, students are presented with a scenario and mystery that needs to be solved. In our escape rooms students are helping a detective to solve the mystery of what was stolen, who was the thief, and the location of the theft.
After completing each activity students use their answers to create a passcode. Once they have a passcode, they enter it into the decoder to reveal part of the mystery.
Watch a Video Walk-Through of a Digital Math Escape Room
Passcodes
Our escape rooms include 3 passcodes to solve the mystery. To unlock each passcode, students complete a math activity with 5 or 6 questions. Overall, students will solve 15-18 questions in the whole escape room activity.
Students use their answers in combination with some ciphers to find the passcode. After they have a passcode, they enter it into a passcode decoder to check.
If their passcode is incorrect, students go back to see what they did wrong. This gives students immediate feedback and tells them when they have to check their math work. If they’ve found the correct passcode, then part of the mystery is revealed.
Then, students move on to decode the next part of the mystery. They complete this process three times until they’ve revealed the stolen item, the thief, and the location of the theft.
Reflection
After answering all the math problems and solving the mystery, it’s important to close out the activity and have students reflect. So, the last slide of the escape room includes a reflection for students. This gives them a chance to reflect about their practice. Students choose and answer a prompt using 2 to 3 sentences to show their thinking. Also, they use an emoji to evaluate how they feel about their understanding of the topic at this point.
After completing the reflection, students turn in their Google Slides presentation to the teacher. You can check to see that they completed the work and read their reflection.
A digital escape room is a great practice activity during a class period. If students don’t finish in a class period their work will be saved for the next day. They’ll have to re-enter their codes into the passcode decoder, but that shouldn’t be a problem because they should have recorded the codes right there in the presentation.
Try One for Free
If you want to see what an escape room looks like and try it out with your students, you can download this freebie here. This escape room reviews combining like terms, distributive property and solving two-step equations.
Tips and Tricks
Here are a few tips and tricks to help you get the most bang for your buck when using digital escape rooms:
- The first time doing this activity will take a little bit longer because everyone has to learn how a digital escape room works. Be patient with everyone the first time you try an escape room.
- Many teachers have commented that a digital escape room works great for centers or when students have choice in which practice activity to use.
- If you want to see students’ work, you can have them add a slide to the presentation and upload a picture of their work to that slide.
- A digital escape room is a great partner activity if you are in a position where students can collaborate with each other.
- Remind students to not yell out the codes for the different parts of the mystery.
- Give digital escape rooms to fast finishers.
- Use them in intervention time or with students who struggle to get motivated.
Find Digital Escape Rooms Here
Whatever middle school math topic you’re teaching right now, there’s a good chance we have an escape room activity ready to go for you. See our entire collection here.
To find all of our digital escape rooms at a huge discount, check out these bundles:
6th Grade Digital Math Escape Rooms
7th Grade Digital Math Escape Rooms
8th Grade Digital Math Escape Rooms
Mega Bundle of all of our Escape Rooms
Try One in Your Classroom Today
If you’re looking for an engaging activity that will get kids excited to do math, then try a digital escape room! Remember to grab this FREE escape room here to see what it’s all about.
Escape rooms are no-prep for you and lots of fun for kids. Imagine assigning the escape room and then watching kids get right into their practice activity. Give it a try, and maybe you’ll find a new favorite, no-prep practice activity.
