Mrs. W's Room

The original plan, after my initial Genius Hour class test, was to create a Breakout Box session for the second-grade class. However, there were several factors that led to this not happening. After I scraped that plan, one of my Genius Hour students got the idea to create a whole school game. From there, the idea evolved into an End-of-Year Breakout. With the help of two students, we worked together to create a game that incorporated several teachers in our building. The students would have to solve eight different clues, in eight different teacher's rooms, in order to unlock the box. Here are some of the materials we created for the game: Kick-off video which got emailed out to all students to build interest (make sure your volume is turned down!).  Accountability sheet  Before they could approach the 'big' box, the team needed to solve (or at least attempt) all of the clues. Example clues  Each teacher came up with the clues for their room. For the most part, t

I can't remember where I first heard about BreakoutEDU boxes, but it's the kind of idea that I love to latch on because the people and teachers heading up projects like these are my kind of people. If you aren't familiar with BreakoutEDU, I suggest watching this . Basically, it's a way to gamify learning, but in a way that engages kids to interact with each other and content. To me, it's just one more tool to add to my teaching toolbox. I received a generous grant from the Blaine County Education Foundation to try out this teaching tool. I originally wanted to purchase the official BreakoutEDU box, but after talking to a fellow teacher, I got the information and confidence I needed to "build" my own set. I'll admit that the initial confusion I had about which materials to buy and setting up my first breakout session was overwhelming. I ordered the materials and ran into some snags with defective locks. When I looked at the directions for one of the