Back to School Escape Room - The Classroom Floor is Lava Breakout Game Activity

Escape Room Team Builder - The Classroom Floor is Lava Breakout Game Activity: Use this creative and fun back to school escape room team builder activity to help foster classroom community and improve critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Students are stuck in a classroom that is filling up with lava and they need to decode puzzles, riddles, and challenges to unlock the elevator to escape. This can be used in English class as it incorporates some ELA skills (spelling, homophones, capitalization), but can also work for any other subject! The best part is that your purchase comes with a hand-drawn video, created by the talented John Spencer, that introduces the escape room and tells the back story to hook students in. Watch a short preview of the video on this page.

How This The Classroom Floor is Lava Back To School Escape Room Works:

Students will watch a video that introduces the escape room back story. Students are at school on the weekend preparing for the upcoming school dance when the floor cracks open and starts spewing lava! Their only chance at escaping is to get the code to the elevator that brings them to the roof, but their teacher has protected the passphrase with challenges and puzzles.

Students use response sheets to record their answers to the puzzles/riddles as they circulate the room to different stations. If it works for your particular students, you can have them not touch the floor between the stations and use the included signs to indicate safe “lava free” spots where they can step. As students complete the challenges, they will obtain parts of a passphrase needed to "escape". Below are the different stations included:

• Spelling Search: Students find and correct spelling errors in cards and put them in order of how many errors there are to uncover the first mystery word.
• Puzzle Pieces: Students put together a jigsaw puzzle to reveal a riddle which leads them to the next mystery word.
• Capitalization Count: Students correct errors in capitalization on cards. The number of errors connects to letters which reveals the mystery word.
• Letter Tile Riddle: Students put tiles in a logical order to unveil a riddle they must solve.
• Hidding Homophones: Students read a passage and pull out incorrectly used homophones. The first letter of each misused homophone reveals a mystery word.
• Lava Pictographs: Students will decipher pictograms to reveal hidden words. Once they have them all, they will input them into a table to reveal the next mystery word.

Included In The Back To School Escape Room Team Builder Activity:

➡️ Escape Room Teacher Instructions: Feel totally confident setting up and implementing this escape room with these detailed teacher instructions.

➡️ Escape Room Activity Slideshow: Use the included slideshow to introduce the escape room to students.

➡️ Escape Room Introductory Video and Narrative Backstory: Introduce the activity with this hand-drawn video that will hook students in immediately. Also included is a written version of the story to set up the escape room.

➡️ Student Instructional Poems and Station Signs: Set up each of the six stations with signs to indicate the task number and type and student instructions in poem form for how to complete each task.

➡️ Escape Room Station Activities: The resource comes with all the materials students need to complete the activities at each station (spelling search, puzzle riddle, homophone reading, pictogram cards, letter puzzle, student instructional poem cards, envelopes, station markers and more!)

➡️ Student Answer Page: Have groups record their answers for each puzzle with the included student answer page. After completing all sections of the page, students will reveal the code phrase they need to escape.

➡️ Teacher Answer Key: Use the included teacher answer keys to check students’ work! This will help you determine a winner of this escape room activity and can also be used as a way to review each of the stations with students after the escape room is complete.

What Teachers Are Saying About This Back To School Escape Room Team Builder Activity:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I rushed this escape room into a quick problem-solving review before state testing. It was a fun way for the kids to review some grammar basics and shake off some of their anxieties the day before the test. In particular, I really appreciated the quick prep with this. I opted to do it as a physical activity but the print and prep was fast.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I used this toward the end of the year with my upper elementary students. They were engaged and enjoyed each task they completed. It was easy to set up, and I can’t wait to use it again this coming school year.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Used this for an enrichment offering. Many students signed up and were excited to participate. Some of the puzzles were challenging for 6th graders, but they preserved! I appreciated how well everything was laid out, so all I had to do was print and organize the copies for each station.

Prefer the digital version? Click here.

If you like this, you'll love this escape room:
Zombie Teacher Escape Room

© Presto Plans © John Spencer

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The videos and resources in this resource are for single-classroom use and are not to be uploaded to the Internet in any format without permission from the creators. Please contact prestoplans@gmail.com if you require more information.