William Shakespeare- The life and plays ESCAPE ROOM: 9 Challenges and Answer Key

Using an Escape Room to develop curriculum knowledge is an exciting activity that will inspire learners from 2nd Grade to 5th Grade (this can also be used for students in 6th Grade too) - particularly if you are learning about the life and plays of William Shakespeare.

The curriculum content of this Escape Room is linked to:

• The life of Shakespeare
• The plays of Shakespeare
• Chronological understanding
• History (Tudor period)

The aim of the Escape Room is to provide jeopardy for the children to work under pressure to solve 9 clues to help historians and writers remember who William Shakespeare was – no-one remembers, and without this knowledge, new stories and movies will not be produced. Not only that, but a vital piece of history has been forgotten and needs to be remembered.

Before beginning, you will need to prepare the following:

• A copy of the Pupil Workbook for each group
• A set of table activities for every group – prepared beforehand and given to each group after they have all completed each Code Key activity
• IT sources and research materials
• Initial Starting Script sharing the problem to the children
• Completion Script celebrating the completion of the challenge

Children do not need prior knowledge of William Shakespeare to complete this Escape Room, as the research will support the answers and each Code Key is supported with several clues. This Escape Room is ideal as a review of learning.

The activity begins by the teacher reader the Initial Message received. It clearly tells the children that they are required to help historians and writers to relearn the importance of William Shakespeare, his life and works! The only way they can do this is to solve the 9 challenges within this Escape Room. Failure is not an option!

What follows are 9 challenges which the children must solve to discover the code to move onto the next activity.

Each activity focuses and builds the children’s knowledge on many aspects of William Shakespeare:

The 9 activities are based on the following outcomes:

• Word Search to introduce 29 key words related to the plays of William Shakespeare
• Word search which introduces facts about the life of William Shakespeare
• Timeline of plays written by William Shakespeare
• 16 famous pairs of characters within the plays of Shakespeare
• Places which are linked to the plays of William Shakespeare throughout the world
• True and false statements relating to the life of Shakespeare, with the children having to justify why a statement is false by giving the correct response from their completion of previous challenges.
• Famous quotes and the plays which they come from – letter sort
• Sorting a timeline into chronological order of the life events of William Shakespeare
• Review of learning - Quiz

When all 9 activities are completed, and the children have gained the correct Code Keys from each activity, the teacher can read the final communication detailing how the children have been able to help the historians and writers remember William Shakespeare for the world to enjoy once again.

Setting up the Escape Room

1. Children should be split into groups of no more than four and be placed in their own work space.

2. Access to IT and research materials should be provided to allow children to research answers to questions and review their own knowledge, as well as checking answers.

3. Each group should have a Code Key Booklet and decide on a team name

4. Read the Initial Message to the children to set the challenge in context. Discuss what this means, and what the activity entails.

5. Turn to Code Key 1. Agree with the children a set time to complete the problem in – this ensures that the children stay on task and maintains the Escape Room element of working under pressure.

6. At the end of the time, children should have filled in the Code Key in their booklet. The teacher can then check the accuracy of all the groups and talk through the responses the children should have.

7. Move on through the remaining challenges until all 10 have been completed.

8. For those groups who have been successful, they are then able to read the completed statement where they find out if they have escaped the Escape Room!

There are other ways of running Escape Room activities, for example, each activity could be set up on 9 tables and the children then move from table to table completing the activity. This would reduce the need for as many resources, and access to non-fiction sources and Internet Resources could then be targeted at specific Challenges.

The Escape Room should last for 2 hours.

We hope that your children enjoy this Escape Room.

If you are currently studying William Shakespeare with your students - we have a range of Shakespeare products in our store including posters and word searches.

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Best wishes

INSPIReducation