Escape Room Overview

This escape room is meant to be for a 4th grade class. It is focused on the skills of making inferences in informational and literature texts, and on identifying and creating complete sentences. The final escape room is meant to be hosted on Google Classroom, with tasks posted as assignments. Slides and videos should either projected for the whole class to view OR also posted on the Google Classroom in sequential order to direct students through each step of the quest. Step 3 should be done with physical materials: sentence strips cut into pieces and put into numbered envelopes. Students will need to have their Quest Log printed and then folded and stapled into a booklet to notate their thoughts and progress over this multi-day escape room.

Standards:

RL.4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

RI.4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. 

L.4.1.f: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments and run-ons.

Objectives:

Given images related to the Deep Ocean theme of the escape room, students will make and list 3 inferences, achieving three out of three correct inferences.

Given a text with sentence fragments and run-on sentences, students will correctly identify complete, run-on, and fragment sentences in three out of four attempts where one sentence is one attempt.

Given a task with four sentence fragments and run-ons, students will rewrite each phrase to create complete sentences, achieving at least three out of four sentences correctly rewritten.

Given a short grade level appropriate text, students will make and list three inferences from fiction and non-fiction texts, achieving three out of three accurate inferences.

When working in a small group, students will collaborate and follow small group expectations requiring two prompts or less to stay on task.

Teacher Preparation:

• Teacher should have organized all the materials (Slides and Videos) in Google Classroom and assigned the lesson to students. -Use "View only" setting. - One per class

• Teacher needs to print and staple the Quest Logs - One per group

• Teacher needs to print and cut the color-coded sentence strips. Put in envelopes labeled "Message in a Bottle" -One per group.

• Teacher print "Sentence Strips Key" (answers) - Put in envelopes labeled "Message in a Bottle Key" - One per group

• Teacher can use 3x5 index cards and white envelopes to create the needed clues for each puzzle:

  • 4 index cards with the code: 359 - Put in envelopes labeled "Code 1."

  • 4 index cards with the Roman numeral: II - Put in envelopes labeled "Code 2."

  • 4 index cards with the code: 5376 - Put in envelopes labeled "Code 3."

 Getting Started

Watch the introduction video above. This sets the scene and gives a sense of purpose to the quest. After watching the video as a whole class, distribute the Quest Logs (below) to students. You may choose to give a Quest Log to each individual student or to whole teams.

After setting the purpose, getting into groups, and distributing the Quest Logs, students are ready to move to step 1. Use the navigation bar at the top of the site to move to the directions for each step.