On the day of the escape room, however, there are other things you can do to get students to buy in even more!įor example, you can show a Halloween or zombie-themed video to set the tone at the start of class.
ESCAPE HALLOWEEN SERIES
You, the teacher, have turned into a zombie, and your students need to solve a series of activities and puzzles to get the ingredients needed to turn you back to your human form. If you laminate your activity cards, puzzle pieces, instructions, envelopes, and folding table markers at the outset, you can reuse them from class to class and year to year.Īll great escape rooms, like this one, come with a backstory that will hook students in. It can take a bit of time to prepare your first escape room, so do yourself a favor and laminate it before you start cutting. One thing I’ve learned over the years of doing this is that lamination is key. You should also print out an answer booklet or page for each group ahead of time to keep things organized. This is especially crucial for bigger classes with more groups than stations. This will keep the noise (and the distractions) at bay! If this is not an option, it can still definitely work, but do your best to spread out the stations away from each other to minimize distractions.Īs for the printed activities themselves, you’ll want to have multiple copies at each station so that students are never waiting around. If you have a lot of students, I would recommend setting up in a larger area (like at the cafeteria or the theater, for example). If possible, spread out the stations so they are not close to each other. You’ll want the groups to be as evenly matched as possible.Īnother thing you’ll want to do ahead of time is set up each of the stations before students arrive. Instead of picking the groups at random, you’ll want to take skill level into consideration here (skills in ELA and problem-solving in general) so that some groups do not have an unfair advantage. Ideally, each group will have less than 4 students, but every classroom is different and if you have a lot of students in your class, you can go up to 5 or 6 students per group if necessary.Ĭhoose the groups in advance and have them projected on the board for students to see when they get to class. Determine how many groups will work best for your classroom. Before Students Arrive GROUPING:īefore your students arrive to class on your zombie escape room day, you’ll want to think about grouping. Here are some tips for running yours smoothly! 1.
I love using a zombie escape room because it is a great team-building activity that helps foster classroom community. Not only is it an extremely entertaining way to bring the spirit of Halloween into ELA class, but it also helps students develop problem-solving, critical thinking, and other ELA skills that will benefit them going forward. A zombie escape room is my favorite Halloween activity for the middle and high school ELA classroom.
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