Breakout Edu

Breakout Edu has come to Indian River School by way of a grant from the Friends of Mascoma! We are so grateful to them for their generosity. We recently introduced this resource to the staff, who are already implementing it in their classrooms.

What is Breakout Edu?

Breakout Edu is like an escape room, where students have to collaborate and use critical thinking skills to solve puzzles to "break out" of a box. These engaging challenges build 21st century and SEL skills, and are aligned to the curriculum standards.

Why use Breakout Edu?

Breakout Edu is a nontraditional classroom activity that activates various learning modalities. Students find them fun and engaging, and they have the power to reach even the most challenging students. There are many standards-aligned challenges across all content areas that can be used to kick off or conclude a unit of study, as a formative assessment, or even just as a team building exercise. The possibilities are endless, as students and teachers can even create custom breakout puzzles.

What does Breakout Edu look like in the classroom?

Many teachers have dipped their toes into the Breakout Edu pool with the digital version of these puzzles. You can try one here.

In addition, during their digital citizenship class at the library, Mrs. Westgate's 8th graders utilized their knowledge of digital privacy to complete one entitled: Think Before You Post.

Students were introduced to the challenge with a story:

The students related to this storyline right away. They were then split into small groups and given clues to unlock five different locks: a word lock, a directional lock, a 3-digit lock, a 4-digit lock, and a padlock (one of the puzzles led them to the location of the key hidden in the library).

The magical thing about these breakout puzzles is how well the students work together. While they are working in small groups, the entire class remains a team as they are all working toward the same goal: breaking out of the box. These students had never completed a breakout puzzle like this before, yet when all minds were put together, their combined brainpower allowed them to solve all of the puzzles and successfully break out of the box!

There were a lot of smiles behind the masks as everyone enjoyed the satisfaction of achieving their goal (and the little prizes inside the box).

World Kindness Day

World Kindness Day is observed globally on November 13th. It was introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement and promotes the importance of being kind to not only each other, but also to one's self and the global community.

In honor of this upcoming special day, we worked on promoting kindness at IRS. There are reminders throughout the hallway and in our morning announcements. The sixth graders in Mrs. Dunkerton's class also helped create a bulletin board highlighting ways that they can choose kindness.

The first collection of "Kindness" books I placed in the library were snatched up quickly, so I refilled the display and these are being checked out with enthusiasm as well.

Let's remember that there is good in this world, and we can continue to spread kindness throughout.