Thing 5 - Breakout Edu

Can I just say how much I really love the idea of the Breakout box.  I purchased a kit a year or so ago and was able to use one of the pre-made lessons with my 3-5 students at the beginning of the year.  I used The Dot  as our art teacher was doing the book and a creating lesson in her art room.  I thought it would be a fun one to use as the kids intro to the Box.  Most classes really worked together solving the clues and successfully broke out.  The ones who didn't wanted a second chance.  Very successful.

I also used the Mr. Lemoncello's Library pre-made lesson with my scholars to help as a team building exercise.  They really worked hard to solve the clues and wanted to open the locks before time was up.

Last week I put together a word document for the digital breakouts for my 5th graders to work on as they finished up a current project.  The theme was spring/summer/outside play and I linked each game with a QR code so they could scan it with the iPads.  There were six they were allowed to choose from.  Many students liked working in pairs or small groups to try to figure out what the locks were.  At one point two tables starting talking about what combinations they had tried and what might work next.  A great thing to watch!

I was disappointed to see that the company has changed so that they have either stopped hosting many of the free lessons and are now charging a yearly fee.  I really don't have that in my budget as it continues to shrink.  So over the last week I started to think about creating my own game to use with students.  The first one always seems to be the hardest... hopefully once I complete it then the creativity will start rolling...

I teach Mars with my 5th grade scholars at this time of year.  To introduce the unit I used a pre-made "escape room" themed with the Solar System.  They enjoyed it.  But if I could create my own with a specific Mars theme, I would be able to highlight a few key details they will be studying.  So with the brainstorming paper provided I started thinking of which locks I had and could see along with what combinations.
Locks:
3 digit - 687 (number of Earth days in a Martian year)
4 digit - 4220 (diameter in miles)
or 2025 (the year Elon Musk wants a manned colony on Mars)
letter lock - solar or water
directional lock with clues with a UV pen and black light
also a lock and key

Would like to highlight Mars Moons as well as other key facts seen here:
https://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/facts/#?c=inspace&s=distance

Hopefully with a little more time I can type up any clues and print out a few colored photos for the students to use.  I am really excited about the possibility of creating my own.  Seems I need a week or so for all of the details to sink in as I came up with one more lock combination and idea as to where to hide the key to use... maybe even through in a poem about Mars, laminated and cut it into puzzle pieces to solve and hide them in the smaller box with the blacklight inside as well.  This way they need to solve a clue or two before they get a few more!