Using an Escape Room to develop curriculum knowledge is an exciting activity that will inspire learners from 2nd Grade to 5th Grade.
The curriculum content of this Escape Room is linked to Fractions in Math and covers the following areas:
- Fractions terminology
- Fraction vocabulary and spelling
- Fraction images to written fractions
- Equivalency in fractions
- Reducing fractions to their lowest terms
- Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions
- Changing mixed fractions to improper fractions and vice versa
- Equivalency of fractions, decimals and percentages
The aim of this Escape Room is to provide jeopardy for the children to work under pressure to solve 10 Challenges to move through this Escape Room, collect the 10 Code Keys and be able to leave the Escape Room in one piece!
Resources included in this product are:
- Code Key Booklet for students
- Answer Key Booklet for teachers
- Resource Pack to run this Escape Room
- Full instructions to set up and run a successful Escape Room
- Table Name Labels for Escape Room teams
- Starting and completion script for the class teacher
Before beginning this Escape Room, you will need to prepare the following resources (all of the resources are included within this product):
- A copy of the Pupil Workbook for each group
- A copy of the Answer Booklet to check the children’s work
- Initial Starting Script sharing the problem to the children
- Completion Script celebrating the completion of the challenge
- Group Table Labels (9 included)
Once the resources are prepared – you are ready to go on this adventure with your children! You may wish to allow you students to have access to Math dictionaries (book based or online) to remind themselves of some of the rules in fractions.
Setting up and running the Escape Room
The Escape Room should begin with the children being put into groups of four. For home learning, the activity can be done in isolation or with other children at home. Within the classroom, four is a good collaborative number as five is too many, three can often gang up on one another and two is not always collaborative enough.
Each group is given a Code Key Booklet and they should think of a team name. They can then write their team name on their Code Key Booklet. They must not look inside the booklet until the Escape Room starts.
Each group decides on a space to work. They should then be given a Team Name Table Label and add their name to the label.
Pens and pencils are the only resources the children will need.
The children are now ready for the activity.
Start by telling the children that they should not look ahead to other activities, other than the one they are working on.
Read the Starting Script – this explains to the children what has happened and what they must do:
Solve 10 Challenges to move through the Escape Room
With the children, decide on a time limit for each of the challenges. Once the time is up, answers can be checked, and the teams can move onto the next challenge. Some challenges are much longer than others – so at the start of each of the different challenges, it would be a good idea to review the timings – especially Challenge 2 which will take a long time (10 minutes minimum for this one).
At the start of each Challenge, it is useful for the children to read the challenge on their own, and then the teacher to read it with them to ensure they understand what they are expected to do. It also means that any questions can be answered at this point.
As the children progress through the challenges, they are able to go back and work through previous challenges to complete them – but they must not move forwards.
What follows are 10 challenges which the children must solve to discover the code to move onto the next activity.
The 10 activities are based on the following outcomes:
- Identifying 15 key words linked to fractions and their properties
- Word Search of 15 key words related to fractions
- Matching fractions to visual representations (including equivalency)
- Matching equivalent fractions with one another
- Reducing fractions to the lowest term
- Addition of fractions
- Subtraction of fractions
- Multiplication and Division of fractions
- Changing improper fractions to mixed fractions and vice versa
- Equivalency triangles – linking fractions to their equivalent decimals and percentages.
When all 10 activities are completed, and the children have gained the correct Code Keys from each activity, the teacher can read the final communication which reveals that they have been successful, how they have been successful and that they may now leave the Escape Room.
The Escape Room should last for at least 2 hours.
We hope that your children enjoy this Escape Room.
Best wishes
INSPIReducation
