Escape Santa's Workshop

If you’re anything like me, you’re always trying to find new ways to teach the same thing!  That’s what we do, right? 

We did a Halloween themed escape room activity and the kids loved it!  I decided I would give it a try and create my own. 

I knew I had to include a couple of problem-solving and teamwork activities as well.  Cooperation is one of our focus character traits we are working on this year.   

The students made elf hats the day before.  They had no idea why they were making them,  but there weren't any complaints.  I told them it was a surprise!.

 

I really wanted to incorporate what we were working on in the classroom and what topics needed review.  Many of my students are still confusing nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  I included the first three but left adverbs for another day.  That has really been a beast to teach.

I have been teaching addition and subtraction math strategies and I wanted to see how they would do with regrouping.  I did differentiate the math for certain students.  I did not want the challenges to create so much frustration that the teams wanted to give up.

The last component was reading comprehension.  Students had to read a passage and then answer questions about the story. 

I think the prep time would have been shorter but I wanted to laminate ALL THE THINGS.  I  did want to make sure it could be reused next year.  I’m big on organizing supplies and materials for lessons and this was no different.  Everything had its place! 

 I initially wanted to go with groups of two but later decided on groups of three.  This helped with prepping materials as well as extra thinking power with the groups.  I didn’t let the children create groups, I made them myself.  This way I could make sure all the teams had a variety of ability levels included. 

They had to answer a clue to advance on to a challenge.  Everyone in the team needed to agree on the answer and write it down on their own recording sheet.  They also came to me, the Head Elf, to get their answers checked.  One of my 2^nd grade team members had the teams vote on one leader who would come up for the group.  I think I may do that next year.  If the answers were incorrect, they had to try again.  I did give clues to groups that I thought were struggling. 

The pyramid challenge (#3) was exciting!  It was funny watching the students attempt to make this pyramid without touching the cups.  They really worked together!  

The gift wrapping with one arm challenge (#5) was just as exciting!  The students figured out quickly that if they didn’t work together, the package was not going to get wrapped. 

It was fun for everyone!  I enjoyed watching them work together and laugh at their mistakes. 

You can find Escape Santa’s Workshop here.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!