Let’s admit, even only the title itself sounds super exciting. Imagine saying to your students not ‘Open your books on page …’ but ‘You have to exit the room at X time. For this you’ll need to find clues and open the lock’.
Wow, that’s the lessons I wish I had at my school (side note: my school was great too). That’s a whole different experience. Let’s start with defining what an escape room is. It is a game where a team of players discover clues and solve puzzles. They accomplish tasks in one or more rooms. The aim is to achieve a specific goal within a limited amount of time.
How can we make it educational?
Well, maybe you guessed, the tasks are made that way that students have to use their knowledge of the subject. It is a perfect example of application of gamification in education. In my case I’ll tell you about ESL/EFL (English as a foreign language) digital escape room for Christmas classes.
As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a short video of my escape room:
Although it took me a week(!) to create it, I really enjoyed the process, feeling like a detective making clues and imagining my students’ reaction when they solve problems I’ve made for them.
Plot
Santa prepared a gift for you, but oh no! He locked it in the room and forgot a lock number. To get the lock number you need to do some tasks he made for you, let’s have fun! There are clues all over the room, just click on things! But to get the number, you need to do the tasks in the correct order.
P.S. Each step in this escape room is secured with a password, so kids won’t mix the steps.
The tasks are engaging and educational. A boy wrote his wishes to Santa, but he was in a hurry and made some mistakes. Can you find extra letters in his wish list? After that, you’ll need to make a word (4 letters), type it and you get your next clue and code! Students will practice listening, watching a short Christmas video, solve riddles, find a word in the maze and much more.
At the end they’ll get a real present — a bright weekly planner! In other words, a perfect Christmas lesson is guaranteed with this escape room!
What is included?
- The link to the escape room. Just click and play. No registration or preparation.
- 7 colourful fun tasks for your students : a maze, a logical problem, find mistakes, make a word, riddles, a short video with questions, letters and clues from Santa:)
- The final gift — a bright weekly planner for a child!
- A teacher’s guide with all answers and hints
Creating digital escape rooms is tedious but so exciting. Maybe it’s the first time in my life when I felt that much of Christmas spirit at the beginning of November…:) no-one can stop those crazy teachers.
So I’ll definitely continue creating ESL digital escape rooms for other occasions and on other topics as well. You can follow me on TpT not to miss my products. By the way, there are some freebies in my store. For example, I’ve created a Free ESL Disneyland virtual field trip. Check it out!
Nadiia Baturynska ESL 