Classroom community is so important. When we build classroom community we create an environment in which all students feel valued and supported and have a sense of belonging. This is vital for successful learning and allow students to reach their full potential.
Reasons to build classroom community:
- Gives students ownership of their classroom
- Increases student motivation
- Improves behavior
- Develops positive relationships
An escape room is a great activity to develop a sense of community within your classroom. Here are some ways in which escape rooms help you build classroom community:
Team work
An escape room is completed in a team. It takes a group of students to work together, striving for a common goal, to complete each task. Students learn social skills including cooperation, compromise and they must support each other as they work through the puzzles. Students must work together and this develops students’ listening, communication and reasoning skills. It is great to complete escape rooms throughout the year and watch students’ team work and communication skills develop as they gain more and more experience of working together with others.
Build classroom community and give students responsibility
When completing an escape room, students are leading the activity rather than the teacher. It is up to them to make choices and to organize the tasks and steps between one another and really take ownership of the activity. When students feel trusted and empowered, this gives them a sense of responsibility. This is motivating and encourages students to strive to achieve their best. Giving students ownership also promotes positive behaviour within the classroom. Escape rooms are a great way to achieve this.
Get to know each other
An escape room is a great way for students to get to know each other. Through working together to solve problems, students get to know each other quickly and get a real sense of each others’ strengths and personalities. Rather than allowing students to choose their own teams, assigning students to teams ensures that students work with others who may be outside their friendship group. If students work on different escape room activities throughout the year, in different teams, they will really get to know all the students in their classroom.
Achieve a common goal together
When students successfully accomplish something together, this creates positive feelings and a sense of achievement. By sharing this with other students in the classroom, this promotes shared positive feelings and a sense of cooperation. It boosts morale and motivates students to strive to achieve their best.
Having fun together
Escape rooms are great fun. Not only do they allow students to apply an academic skill, they also have a great time doing it. A fun memorable experience will build classroom community and promote positive relationships.
If you’d like to learn how to create your own escape room, check out my guide on how to make a classroom escape room.
The beginning of the school year is a great time to get started with building classroom community and implementing escape rooms into your curriculum. If you’d like to give an escape room a go in your classroom check out my Back to School Second Grade Place Value Escape Room.
This fun back to school themed escape room is perfect for the beginning of the school year and really helps to set the foundations of a great classroom community for the year ahead, alongside giving students an opportunity to develop place value skills. Alongside the printable version you will also receive a Google Forms digital version that is completely self-checking. Find out more here!