Halloween Haunt REVERSE Escape Room! Break IN to ANY Unit or Content Area!
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Description
Looking for a seasonal twist on a centers activity? Say goodbye to the "Death by Lecture" approach and cackle "IT'S ALIIIIIIIVE!!!" as your unit jolts with student centered enthusiasm with this high-energy small group activities approach to back to school basics for ANY COURSE OR GRADE LEVEL. Introduce course routines, cool tech tools, and classroom procedures to "flesh out" any unit or content area with a game-changing twist. Then have some spooky fun as student teams earn custom badges, purchase powerful upgrades, make some new friends, and smash their way through a graveyard of dancing skeletons!
This completely editable gamified approach to a centers activity can be modified for any course or content area (don't laugh: I teach eleventh grade literature - and it's become a game-changing classroom staple). And it's fast-paced, high energy approach to an all out war with dancing skeletons is so fun, it's scary.
ABOUT THE PRODUCT:
Imagine a class Escape Room in REVERSE. Where student teams compete to break IN to a new unit of study, teaching themselves by solving asynchronous BYOD puzzles in a race against their peers and the clock.
Interested?
I've had a ton of fun designing and implementing themed escape rooms in my HS classes, but for as AMAZING as class escape rooms and tools like Breakout EDU can be (for real, they're fantastic!) -- I've found the traditional escape room to be somewhat limited when it comes to its functionality in ensuring that all students receive access to all puzzles. This posed a real challenge when using escape rooms in place of traditional lectures to introduce new content that could be delivered in such a way that every student would get the same level of access to new materials.
And thus, #QRBreakIN was born.
Think of it as a REVERSE Escape Room (or a caffeinated update on old-school "centers" with a gamification twist) designed for simultaneously teaching eight different concepts simultaneously through asynchronous problem-solving by using devices in small groups. Capturing the fun and excitement of an escape room, while self-pacing and enriching content in a way that moves more efficiently through all of the material you'd otherwise have to cram into a traditional lecture.
No physical locks to set or boxes to keep track of. With a ticking countdown and an overhead leaderboard so EVERY student will complete EVERY activity -- and find themselves genuinely excited to do so! This REVERSE Escape Room is designed to help your students “Break IN” to the world of your classroom through a series of timed challenges, team puzzles, and self-paced unit content and enrichment activities.
ABOUT THIS GAME:
This game is designed as a teaching activity as you welcome students to your classroom in the first days of school. The gamified approach to activity centers can likewise be reformatted for play for any future unit of study at any time during the year (you might likewise consider using individual puzzle types at select intervals throughout any unit). Though it is originally designed as a “back to school” style puzzle with asynchronous activities, it can quickly be adapted for any new concept in virtually any course or content area with access to BYOD or one-to-one internet access.
This high-energy "Halloween Haunt" inspired activity is 100% editable -- and requires minimal set-up. Student teams compete asynchronously in a looping three step process:
• SELECT a puzzle from the available choices by rolling the custom dice
• SOLVE the puzzle at your desk group with your teammates to earn custom badges
• REDEEM badges to score sweet upgrades and to help your team escape!
Player teams will earn survival item badges as they solve different puzzles, with the target of being the first team to complete all eight puzzles before time expires! (Then it's time for the Skeleton Bowling Bonus Game -- a high energy competition blending luck, strategy, teamwork and skill to give students the chance to take their shots at undead monsters to make a daring classroom escape)!
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
Students will need BYOD or one-to-one devices with free QR scanner apps installed. There are eight puzzles in this game, testing the following skills by using a mix of traditional handwritten notes and discussion, websites, and these free mobile apps:
• FRANKENSTEIN: Google Forms
• BLACK CAT: Sketchnoting
• WITCH HAT: Quizizz
• PUMPKIN: Webquest
• BAT: YouTube
• SKULL: EdPuzzle
• CAULDRON: Flipgrid
• GHOST: Microlab
DOWNLOAD INCLUDES:
+ 5 page game instruction manual
+ 32 fully illustrated Google Slides with all printables and escape room activity scenario planning documents for 40-90 minutes of simulation (the template of which you can use again and again to introduce a similar "break in" for any future unit of study).
+ EIGHT themed puzzles that can serve as in-game activities or stand alone centers for asynchronous pre-teaching / assessment of course basics.
+ TWO ready to go, plug-and-play quiz activities, with ready-made sample assignments using EdPuzzle (1 video with 10 questions) and Quizziz (10 questions),
+ A FREE copy of my course welcome letter that's otherwise available on TPT for $2, along with a complete set of survey questions in a back-to-school Google Forms questionnaire for inspiration.
*(Note: Not ready for a full-class Escape Room? No problem. Teachers can use these same interactive puzzles as stand-alone activities to be completed in small groups across multiple days of your welcome back week! Have groups solve one or two puzzles a day to keep chasing for survivalist badges one at a time as you roll out new classroom tools or concepts). Plus you have full edit access to the Google Slides presentation, which makes it a PERFECT pedagogical tool to revisit time and again as you break "in" to any new unit of study)!
+ ONE Dancing Skeletons-Themed gameboard, designed to spark enthusiasm and creative sense of play (without all the gore and guns of the more gritty horror franchises)!
+ ONE printable "game-changing" visual scoring rubric to help students see their unique progress and areas for growth.
+ Custom player power-up cards, designed to increase strategy, teamwork, and resource management (with activity instructions)
+ Instructions and modification ideas for constructing a classroom Skeleton Bowling Bonus Game activity (Minimal setup required)!
+ Complete instructions on how to create themed Google Forms and customized QR codes for all puzzles to serve as electronic locks
+Step-by-step teacher walk-through for all activity puzzles. (Included as speaker notes on each page of the Google Slides)
+ Step-by-step walkthrough of the pedagogical rationales and instructional strategies behind each of the game's puzzles, mixing high-energy hands-on problem-solving, kinesthetic learning, and app-based gamification. A sample: "A microlab is a timed discussion in which teammates take turns hearing one another out as they respond to the same “HOT” (“Higher Order Thinking”) question. Hot questions are multi-layered questions without simple “yes” or “no” answers, so they typically lend themselves to multiple layers of interpretations. Keep digging! And be prepared to use rich detail to fill the time! When you’re ready, call The Groundskeeper over to observe your group’s Microlab discussion on this question: “What makes a great teacher? What makes a great student?”
+Step-by-step teacher walkthrough with sample work products and to how to set up accounts and activate all game puzzles.
+ Fully customizable Google Slides download contains plug-and-play Escape Room scenario and review game that can be put in place TODAY if your students have device access. Likewise, includes instructions on how to modify any puzzles to your course needs (including strategies for classes using laptops) -- creating incredible versatility and flexible re-use.
High energy, visually stunning, and fully immersive -- this is a class escape room done right. Driven by student collaboration, competition, and communication skills: it's an immersive BREAK IN activity that your classes will NEVER forget.
Have a blast with this adventure. And good luck with your REVERSE escape room!
- John
*PS: While I really cannot say enough great things about BreakoutEDU, please note that this product is in no way affiliated with, designed for, or endorsed by BreakoutEDU. Two totally separate products with two completely different instructional aims. BreakoutEDU is run by awesome people with an fantastic class-based Escape Room product, where students collaborate with classmates to divide & conquer and break out of a themed escape room scenario. #QRBreakIN games use the same timed spirit of competitive play to "break IN" to a new unit, which ensures that ALL students have the chance to work on ALL puzzles.
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Want more Halloween Activities?
Get two full weeks of activities and save 25% by purchasing the three product bundle.
Want more Escape Rooms?
Comprehensive End-of-Unit Escape Rooms designed for BreakoutEDU:
Escape Room: Death of a Salesman
Escape Room: Emerson, Thoreau and American Romanticism
Escape Room: Poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
Escape Room: To Kill a Mockingbird
Shakespeare Escape Rooms:
The Merchant of Venice: Shylock's Revenge
Or Break IN to a Brand New Unit with a REVERSE Escape Room using QR Codes!
As I Lay Dying: The Legend of Bundren #QRBreakIN REVERSE Escape Room (Plays Like Zelda!)
As I Dying: Tull's River Crossing #QRBreakIN REVERSE Escape Room
Ethan Frome #QRBreakIN REVERSE Escape Room
The Great Gatsby #QRBreakIN REVERSE Escape Room
To Kill a Mockingbird REVERSE Escape Room: Break IN to Boo Radley's!
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