Division Escape Room Lesson

This Division Escape Room Lesson (you can find it here) is one of my favorite culminating activities to my 4th grade division unit. It incorporates so many skills and concepts into a fun and exciting format for students. I consider any lesson where students are so engaged and motivated that they don’t realize just how hard they’re working a success. In this post, I will share how I implemented this escape activity into my classroom.

As with my other escape rooms, there detailed directions on how to set up and prep the escape room. While, you definitely can’t consider this a “no prep” activity, you can greatly reduce the amount of prep time needed. I like to prep my boxes by setting everything out and assembling one lock at a time. I can usually get the boxes and locks ready in less than 15 minutes. If I use the digital version, I can be ready to go in less than five minutes.

In the division escape activity, there is also a detailed student direction page. It’s important to consistently remind students to go back to the directions page. Many times my students want to skip that step, and then they don’t know what to do or how to use the clue to determine the code for the lock. If  the question is something they can answer for themselves, I remind them to look back at the directions. This is one of the reasons I love these activities, because it encourages independence and problem solving.

Division Escape Room-Clue 1

In the first clue, students solve each of the long division problems on the recording sheet. I let students choose whichever strategy they prefer, since I use this at the end of our division unit. After students divide, they find the quotient to each problem on the bottom of the recording sheet. Students place the letter on the problem on top of the corresponding quotient. When they crack the secret message, they use that message to unlock the first lock.

Division Escape Room-Clue 2

Clue 2 is a lot of fun, because students are never sure how the recording sheet will actually give them the clue. I LOVE the expressions on their face when they “see” the clue. The numbers on the table are being used as dividends in division problems. Students color in all numbers that will be certain to have a remainder-no matter what the divisor for the problem is. Encourage students to not attempt to try to solve every possible division problem. Instead, students think about divisibility rules and use the process of elimination.

Division Escape Room-Clue 3

Clue 3 contains task cards where students must interpret the remainder to a division word problem. There are three answer choices at the bottom of each task cards card. Students select the best choice and write down the corresponding letter. After completing each of the task cards, students unscramble the letters to find the code for the next lcok.

Division Escape Clue 4

Clue 4 focuses on the representation of long division through area models, partial quotients, and place value. In this clue, students find the missing number in a division equation. Students solve each of the problems on the Clue 4 task cards. After they determine the five answers, they place their cards in order from the smallest answer to the greatest answer. This is the order of the letters for the 5-letter lock.

After students complete Clue 4, they escape the division dungeon. You can give students a prize for escaping, or the act of escaping can BE the prize.

As with my other escape rooms, I’ve included a digital version, so you do do these lessons without the boxes and locks. If you’d like to learn more about the set-up and assembly of escape rooms, be sure to check out this blog post. It has a lot of useful ideas that you can use with any escape room.  Please let me know if you have any questions about this Division Escape Room Lesson!