ELA ESCAPE ROOM: Nursery Crime - 10 Challenges, Student Workbook, all resources, Answer Key

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:

• Literature – Nursery Rhyme knowledge and Comprehension Skills
• Spelling – Word building skills
• Maths – Multiplication, Number Facts, Number Properties
• Problem Solving – anagrams, riddles, sequencing

Oh no! Your students find themselves immersed in the land of Nursery Rhymes – and the famous characters are going missing! Only they can stop this by completing the challenges and discovering the code keys which, when correctly completed, will move them onto the next challenge.

The aim of this Escape Room is to provide jeopardy for the children to work under pressure to solve 10 Challenges to move through the story of this Nursery Rhyme Escape Room, collect the 10 Code Keys and receive the final reveal which solves the mystery of what is happening to the Nursery Rhyme characters and why!

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
• PowerPoint presentation of up to date News Reports, text messages, TV reports, Ransom note to be used with the Escape Room at specific points
• News Report Cards to print alongside the PowerPoint or instead of the presentation.
• Table Name Labels for Escape Room teams

Students will meet many different characters within their Escape Room challenge and the problems are linked to elements within those rhymes.

For example:

• Humpty Dumpty sitting on a math wall of problems to solve
• Wee Willie Winkie knocking on different number doors – sort the numbers into a three ring Venn diagram
• Little Miss Muffett Maze to escape the spider
• Word Building with Old MacDonald
• Sequencing the different ways you can add ingredients to make a cup of tea
• Solving number problems and sequencing the answers with 5 little ducks who went swimming one day
• Problem solving with Hey Diddle Diddle.

After each challenge, the storyline of the Escape Room will move the children on until they have completed all 10 challenges.

However, this is just one element of this Escape Room. The children must solve the 10 challenges – but that will only move them through the room. In order to return home and Escape the Room – the children must work towards the final script which reveals what has happened to each character and why.

As the Escape Room continues, there is a mobile phone symbol on each Challenge. Upon the correct completion of the challenge, an up to date news report, weather report, newspaper article, police report or ransom note has been delivered. These can be shown on a classroom based interactive whiteboard through the included PowerPoint presentation, or cards can be printed off (also included) and given to the teams when they complete a challenge correctly. These news reports of various formats will provide the players with more information about what is happening in the land of Nursery Rhymes beyond the 10 Challenges. We believe this is a unique way of making the Escape Room incredible interactive and “real-time” for the children.

After 10 accurately completed challenges, the teacher will then read the final script – this will reveal the outcomes of the Escape Room and what has been happening to the characters and why!

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
• PowerPoint set up with the 9 news reports and/or
• A set of news reports printed for each group
• 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!

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 story and,
• Receive a number of news reports as the Challenge goes on giving more information on events outside of 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 Challenges 1 and 2 which take a long time (10 minutes minimum for these two).

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:

• Word Search to introduce 35 key words related to Nursery Rhymes – as well as an extra secret hidden instruction which is the Code Key to move to Challenge 2.
• Code Breaking to reveal the next part of the challenge
• Actions speak louder than words – match the character to their action
• Humpty Dumpty – Math Multiplication Challenge
• Wee Willie Winkie – Number classification using Venn Diagrams
• Little Miss Muffett Maze – Save Miss Muffett from the spider
• Old MacDonald Word Builder
• Sequencing – how many different ways are there to make a cup of tea?
• Five Little Ducks – Number Problem Solving and Sequencing answers
• Hey Diddle Diddle – Sequencing Characters.

If the challenges are completed successfully by the children, they will also notice the mobile phone symbol with number 1 - 9.

These symbols mean that, if they have completed the activity correctly, they will receive a news report which gives them more information about what is happening beyond the Escape Room. This could be:

• Ransom note
• Newspaper reports for missing characters
• Text messages of weather warnings
• TV Reports of missing characters
• Police Crime Reports on criminal behaviour

At this point, use the PowerPoint and cards to reveal to the children the news reports and allow them time to read and work out what this means to their Escape Room Challenge.

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 what happened to the characters, why and where they are now.

The Escape Room should last for at least 2 hours.

We hope that your children enjoy this Escape Room.

Thank you for visiting our store,

Best wishes

INSPIReducation