The Escape Room: Class Version

Background

In the beginning of each semester, I try to do a few activities that build community and get students thinking about learning. Last semester I invented the building blocks warmer. My students have enjoyed it each time we’ve done it. This semester, I developed a followup activity on learning theory that I did on the next class day after the building blocks activity. It went really well. Let me tell you about it. 

There’s a popular entertainment fad around the world right now called escape rooms. If you’ve done one, then you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve never heard of it, the concept is simple. You get “locked” in a room, and you have to work with those around you to find clues, solve puzzles, unlock locks, and get out. It’s really fun. 

I’m quite the fan of escape rooms. In my opinion, they effectively throw you into a state of problem solving flow where your mind is on fire and deeply engaged in the task. They also strip away that worry of “being wrong” that we develop as adults. Escape rooms put you in a state of mind where you’re ready and willing to try every theory, possible code, or key that you find, regardless of that fact that there’s a high chance you’re wrong. You’re focused on the end goal, and so  you don’t take time to “feel bad” when a theory or idea doesn’t pan out. In other words, you have the perfect attitude toward learning, struggle, and making mistakes. 

Over the summer as I was planning for this semester, the brilliant idea to turn my class into an escape room popped into my head. Of course, as I have a tendency to do, I fully committed to the idea of doing this without considering the sheer amount of prep that this activity was going to take. The good news for you is that you’re more than welcome to steal my ideas and save yourself some time (but not money – that’s on you 😀 ). 

The Why

Before I share with you how to set up an escape room in your class, if of course you are interested, let me share with you why you should consider it.  Here are the lessons I drew from it for my class.

You can click here to access my Google Slides for this activity

After we do this activity, I ask my students “Why did we do this?” Most of my students said things like, “so we can build community,” “to learn how to work together,” “to have fun,” etc. I tell them that those are definitely all good reasons why we did the activity, but that I have a few more I want to share with them. 

1. To learn how to be the best language learner

I tell them that learning a language is a task of solving problems and puzzles. You have to analyze the language, search for clues, test out theories, see what works and what doesn’t, and then draw conclusions about how the language works. 

2. To experience the best attitude about mistakes that you can have

We can tell our students that they shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes when learning a language, to not let fear cripple them. However, hearing something in theory is different than experiencing it. In the escape room environment, students are living the experience of not being afraid to make mistakes. Nobody is going to find a key and feel afraid to test which lock it goes into, and I asked them that very question, and of course, nobody raised their hands. We then talk about mistakes. I tell them “When you try something and it doesn’t work, you learn just as much as if it had worked. You learn what doesn’t work, and that’s just as important as learning what does.”

3. To see that learning should be fun and engaging

I end on this note. I tell them not to worry about making mistakes, but to instead enjoy the experience of learning a new language and embrace the challenges and puzzles it brings. 

I’ve used this concept of “problem solving” and “solving the puzzle” to frame activities I’ve done in class this semester. In fact, the activity that I followed this one with was to give them a handout on the past tense as their “clue” and then I had various past tense activities they could do. I let them group up and pick which activity “puzzle” they wanted to work on with their classmates. 

These are some pictures of my students as they were doing this activity. You can see that they were deeply engaged and working together to solve the puzzles.

Setup and Overview 

Time

The puzzles I created took my students about 30 minutes. Of course, every class and level will be different. My goal was to make it challenging, so it would be engaging. However, I didn’t want it so challenging that they couldn’t get it done within class time. 

Materials I used

There are endless puzzles and themes for escape rooms. You could take some time and create your own, or you’re welcome to copy some of what I did. I did purchase some things on Amazon for this activity. You can see the Amazon affiliate links below to see what I got. You could certainly substitute items if you have things that could work. The total for me was about $50. 

• 1) number books safe (three numbers)  
• 1) number bottle top safe (three numbers) 
• 1) number combo lock (four numbers) 
• 2) letter combo locks (four letters 
• 2) key locks 
• 1) map of your state, province, or country 
• 1) empty bottle 
• 1) fake door of some kind. I used cardboard. You can see my masterpiece below.  

Puzzles

You can access my document with the puzzles here if you want to use some of mine 

 

The Map Puzzle

I hung a map of California on one of the walls of the classroom. On the map I had identified several cities throughout the state and written on them in pencil. I circled one of the letters and then wrote a dot or more under the letter to identify the order for the combo. This solves one of the letter locks. Make sure you get a map with guides on the side such as A – Z on one side and then numbers on the other. Then on a clue page that students find in the book safe, it has the coordinates to the cities to help them solve this. They need the coordinates because the map is so large and the pencil marking is light enough that it’s hard to spot by just looking. 

The Language Jigsaw Puzzle

For this one, I harnessed my students’ native languages. This added to the community building aspect because they had to seek out people from certain languages to help solve the puzzle. Everyone had to work together. I translated basic words in a couple of languages (just in case no speakers of one language showed up). Then on other corresponding sheets, I had spaces for the letters of the word in English. The first letter that is bold is the letter needed for the combo.  The dots indicate the order for the combo. I then hid all these papers around the room. 

Once students translate the words from their native languages, they will write them on these. The dark line goes to the combo and the dots show the order.

You will have to change the native language translations depending on what languages your class has in it.

Language Cloze

I made a grammar cloze. After completing it, students counted how many of each word were used. You could change the grammar depending on the level.  For my highest level, I used their/they’re/and there. For my lower level, I used a BE verb cloze. 

The Animal Puzzle

This puzzle has some easy riddles about animals. This solves a number combo lock. 

Day of Set Up 

If you want, you can try to make sense of my notes for setting up the puzzles. It might be easiest if you create exactly how your puzzles go together since it might make more sense to you that way.