I love a good transformation, no matter how small. So I thought to myself, why not create math activities that could pair with a classroom transformation and still teach important skills. I came up with the idea to make my math review day into a hands-on classroom transformation. So far this year, I have taught two of my math review/classroom transformations. The kids are loving them. I have never seen so many of them stay so focused. I created mini math escape rooms that students do in partners or small groups. The students generally take about one hour to finish one of the escape rooms. Let me show you how these work.
Setting up a Math Escape Room Transformation
First, I want to say that you can use these escape rooms to go all out (and I have) or keep it simple with minimal decorations (which is what I did this time), or you could even skip the decorations all together. The decorations do not make the activity, but they do build engagement. Even though my decorations were minimal this time, students were curious and asking questions right away. I only had one table decorated. It piqued their interest and helped build excitement.
As you can see, I simply placed a black table cloth on a table, arranged the challenges and student lab manuals, set out the Star Bucks, added the drink mixture items (what they were working towards in this challenge), and added some star garland. That. Is. It. I did not spend hours decorating, I literally spent probably five minutes...and it was still impactful in building engagement.
How to Prep the Review Game Materials
I usually prep the packs for each team a few days ahead, or the day before. You just have to print everything for each challenge, cut and place in an envelope. I like to laminate all the puzzles so I can use them from year-to-year, so that is what I have been doing. This would be great to give to a parent who wants to be involved in the classroom, but really, the cutting itself did not take me too long.
Take a Look at the Math Escape Challenges
When I introduce the escape to the students, I read off the introduction. It sets up the challenges and the goal for the challenge. I also tell them about what they earn at the end of each challenge. In this case, the addition escape room was a Mission to Mars theme. Students earned Star Bucks for each challenge they completed. After they completed each challenge, students were able to visit the Galactic Cafe' to make a special drink using their Star Bucks to pay for it. They were instantly hooked and worked so hard to figure out the secret codes for each challenge. The majority of my groups used about an hour of time, which was perfect for my math block. However, it could be split up where students do one or two challenges each day for a few days if you did not have that long.
In the first challenge, students had to round the numbers and solve the equation, matching puzzle pieces to the answer. Each puzzle piece had a letter on it and once the puzzle was complete, they asked for the decoder and were able to use it to find the secret code. This challenge generally takes the longest of any of them.
Challenge 2 includes a true/false worksheet for each student. Once students figure out which equations are true and which are false, they find the space ships that have the numbers matching the true equations. They put those space ships in numerical order and find their next code.
For challenge three, students work to find the sums on each astronaut card. Once they figure out the sums, they will put those in order from least to greatest to reveal the next code phrase/word.
Challenge four has students engaging in a game of memory match. Once students match the equations to the sums, they will line up the number cards and place the matching card underneath, revealing their final code.
This has honestly been such an engaging review activity for my students.
Galactic Cafe'
For the Galactic Cafe' you need just a few items. There are labels to cover those items, to give everything a space theme. Here's a look at the final product.
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