I'm So Excited to Review for State Testing....

....said no teacher ever.

Except this year.

Because I am.

I'm planning a 3 day study session for state testing.  I've mapped out the most important topics to review to help my kids show what they know.

But the awesome part is I'm planning to do it Escape Room style, so I think it will be awesome!

This will for sure be the biggest Breakout I've ever attempted but I think it will fine.  I'm going to have 8 boxes, but each with just one lock.  Each box will be focused on a different topic:  circles, surface area, factoring/distributive property, solving equations, percents, scale drawing, statistics, proportional relationships and one general review.

I'm going to put a link to a review video on each puzzle so the kids can watch a quick review if they need help.  The boxes can be solved in any order.  As teams break in to a box, they will find a piece of one final puzzle and some money.

The whole point of the Breakout will be to collect as much money as possible.  At the end of the Breakout, we will have an auction where teams can bid on items to buy.

One of the other things that I'm really excited about is that teams will also be able to earn extra money for the auction by exhibiting good teamwork and collaboration.  I based this on the idea of participation quizzes from Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler.  I adapted the rubric from the book to this situation, and went over these expectations before we began.  Click below to download what I used with my class as I introduced this activity.  I was REALLY pleased with how this helped.  I talked specifically with my classes about the fact that I didn't want them to "divide and conquer" the puzzles, but to work together.  I only had groups in one class that split up....most groups worked together as I asked them to!

Teams that finish all of the boxes can earn additional money by completing the final puzzle, which they get the pieces to when they break in to all of the boxes.

At first I thought I was going to plan all of the puzzles...but then I realized that I could use stuff that I already have.  So I've created a few puzzles from scratch, but for several of them, I've just used existing worksheets or puzzles and found a way to turn them into an escape room style puzzle.

I used these puzzles as several of the games:
 Graveyard Scale Drawing Scavenger Hunt
Percent of a Number Warm Up Activity
7th Grade Review Puzzles

If you teach 6th or 8th grade, these might work better for you:
6th Grade Review Puzzles
8th Grade Review Puzzles

Some of these were ready to go as puzzles.  Some of them needed some minor adjustments to make into a puzzle.  Read more in this post about how I made some minor adjustments to turn things I had into a puzzle.