For these Decatur educators, ‘escape rooms’ can be useful teaching tool

The Decatur School has set up an ‘escape room’ at the Camp Connections which is developed for Kindergarten and first-grade students.

The puzzles in the escapes room, when solved, open up the next clue for students to solve. The room is like an adventure box in which teams of players solve different riddles and puzzles with the help of clues to complete specific objectives.

The activity is not only fun but also helps engage students into learning and re-enforces their academic skills. It also creates team work amongst students in the form of a fun activity.

The concept stated when Kamie Meador, instructional specialist at Decatur heard about it. She said, “I thought, how can we take this and plug it into the existing curriculum?”

Kits were bought online and breakout rooms were visited in Champaign to see how much planning and designing was needed to create a similar escape room at Decatur. The concept was an easy one and can be applied for kids at any age.

The trick part is in creating the puzzle room and to make the puzzles challenging but at the same time possible to solve.