Fifth-grade students in Kaelyn Montgomery’s gifted classroom are wrapping up the school year with a puzzling and highly creative challenge: designing escape rooms for their younger classmates to solve.
An escape room is an interactive problem-solving activity in which participants work together to solve a series of clues, puzzles, or riddles within a time limit in order to “escape” or unlock a final goal. The activity encourages teamwork, critical thinking, and creativity while reinforcing academic skills.
‘Students in the Gifted Program have been participating in breakout-style escape rooms for as many years as they have been in the program. It has become a meaningful and engaging part of our curriculum,” said Montgomery. “Now, as fifth graders, they have the exciting opportunity to take on a new role and design and create their own escape rooms for other grade levels to experience and enjoy.”
Working collaboratively in groups of three or four, all 18 fifth-grade gifted students are involved in the project. Each group is responsible for creating an escape room tailored to a specific grade band: kindergarten through first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade. The escape rooms will be set up within each grade level’s team area enabling the younger students to enjoy the challenge designed specifically for their age group.
This year, students used the Google Docs word processor and a variety of self-created ciphers and puzzles to design their escape rooms.They have crafted clues that challenge both logic and creativity, including math-based locks, letter-unscrambling activities, Morse code messages, hidden clues, and other problem-solving tasks. Each escape room will conclude with students attempting to solve a three-digit code that opens a physical lockbox containing Pup Bucks (coupons that students can redeem for prizes or activities) as a reward for achieving success.
While the activity is fun, the learning behind it is significant. “This project encourages creativity, communication, critical thinking, and teamwork in an authentic and engaging way,” noted Montgomery. “The gifted students develop leadership and collaboration skills as they guide the younger students through the activities.” And their classmates learn to work together to make their “escape”!
