Happy Pi Day! Well – almost. Pi Day is coming up on March 14 and I thought, “What could be a fun way to celeberate Pi Day with students?”

Enter…”Pi Day!” BreakoutEDU Digital!

The Topics:

In this BreakoutEDU, students will learn:

• About the number π.
• Trivia facts about the number π.
• About radius and diameter.
• How to calculate circumference and area.

Age/Grade Levels:

The above topics most relate to the 6th-8th grade CCSS Geometry standards.  However, I designed the game to be an introduction and contain very basic skills to allow more ages to participate, particularly students who have no knowledge of this topic.

Digital Tools Used:

In this BreakoutEDU, I have used the following digital tools and resources:

• Google Forms (of course!)
• Google Sites
• Google Drawings
• Hidden/Embedded Links
• Letter/Number Ciphers

Most of the BreakoutEDU requires students to answer problems on Google Forms but they do have to find the forms and/or break into the forms to solve the problems.

To access the “Pi Day” Breakout EDU Digital, click HERE.

Will you be celebrating Pi Day with your students? If so, what are some other ways that you celebrate this math-y day?!

At the beginning of this school year, I introduced my new students to BreakoutEDU and they loved it!  The first BreakoutEDU Digital that they completed was the “Catch the Bus” breakout that is available on the BreakoutEDU website.  So, I decided it was time to create a new BreakoutEDU Digital for my students to review integers and fractions, which is a large portion of our Number Systems unit.

Enter…”The Locked Boxes” BreakoutEDU Digital!

The Storyline:

Since this was only the second BreakoutEDU that my students have completed, I did not have a complex storyline.  The storyline is simple:

You are presented with five boxes – four small boxes and one large box. The large box has a hidden secret but you must break into the other boxes first.

Can you unlock the box and find what is inside?!

As my students move through the year, the storylines tend to get more complicated and require the students to pay careful attention to detail.  In this one, they will work through the “locked boxes” that will lead them to questions that they must answer to unlock the codes.

In this BreakoutEDU, students will:

• Add, subtract, multiply, and divide positive and negative integers.
• Add, subtract, multiply, and divide positive and negative mixed numbers.
• Solve complex world problems.

Digital Tools Used:

In this BreakoutEDU, I have used the following digital tools and resources:

• Google Forms (of course!)
• Google Sites
• Google Drawings
• Hidden/Embedded Links
• Google Slides
• Letter/Number Ciphers

Most of the BreakoutEDU requires students to answer problems on Google Forms but they do have to find the forms and/or break into the forms to solve the problems.

To access the “The Locked Boxes” Breakout EDU Digital, click HERE.

Final Thoughts:

I was very excited to see how much my new students enjoyed BreakoutEDU.  Every group of students is different and, as a teacher, it is important to know what will engage and inspire them.  I’m looking forward to them participating in more BreakoutEDU activities and, eventually, creating their own!

To prepare for our end of the unit assessment, I assigned my students a BreakoutEDU Digital to review the concepts that we had covered throughout our Geometry unit.  Before I created the BreakoutEDU, I asked my students for ideas on the “theme” of the next BreakoutEdu.  One of the most interesting ideas that I heard from my students was to create a gameboard instead of a story – I loved it!

Enter…The “GeoWorld” BreakoutEDU Digital!

Little did I know, that the gameboard that I was creating aligned with Dee Lanier’s smashboard idea for his Google Innovator project.  Also, I encourage you to check out his smashboard idea in the EdTechTeam Blog: How to Smashboard.

The Storyline:

Unlike my other BreakoutEDU Digital activities, this one did not have a storyline.   At the beginning, it is a bit tricky because the Google Site is not organized as I have done in the past.  Instead, the students are given a series of choices (yes/maybe/no) that will lead them to the “gameboard”.  If they choose “yes”, they are immediately taken to the gameboard.  If not, the students are taken on a journey that…well, it basically leads them nowhere.  Once they get to the gameboard, students are challenged to answer a variety of Google Forms and see how they are all used together to break the code.  Certain spaces match other spaces, so these concepts and answers tend to go together.

In this BreakoutEDU, students will:

• Calculate the area of rectangles, triangles, circles, and trapezoids.
• Calculate the area of combined and shaded figures.
• Calculate the surface area and volume of three-dimensional figures.
• Calculate the missing angles of shapes.
• Use their knowledge of area to solve word problems based on real-life scenarios.

Digital Tools Used:

In this BreakoutEDU, I have used the following digital tools and resources:

• Google Forms (of course!)
• Google Sites
• Google Drawings
• Hidden/Embedded Links
• Jigsaw Planet
• EdPuzzle

Most of the BreakoutEDU requires students to answer problems on Google Forms but they do have to find the forms and/or break into the forms to solve the problems.

To access the “GeoWorld” Breakout EDU Digital, click HERE.

Final Thoughts:

At this point, I have made several BreakoutEDU Digital activities for my students.  Now, I want to put it in their hands.  Over the next few weeks, my enrichment groups will be working on building their own BreakoutEDU Digital on concepts that they have been taught during this school year.  Several groups have already started and it is amazing to see how quickly they catch on to all of the technology tools that they need to use.  I cannot wait to see what they create!

Enjoy the activity and feel free to send me some feedback!

A couple of weeks ago, my students were asking when we would have another BreakoutEDU Digital in our math classroom since the last one we had done was in early February.  Before you begin thinking that I don’t like BreakoutEDU Digitals, I have to tell you – I absolutely LOVE using BreakoutEDU Digital in our math classroom.  The students enjoy it, their engagement is at an all-time high, and they are able to review and practice material from class.  The only drawback is that it takes me a few hours to make and the last couple of months have been very busy.  So, last weekend I told myself I would sit down and build a new BreakoutEDU on reviewing area of shapes.

Enter…The “Escape the Dungeon!” BreakoutEDU Digital!

The Storyline:

When I create a BreakoutEDU Digital, I try to create a story that my students will find entertaining.  Usually, that means that I will put their names into the story to create a greater interest in seeing what happens to the characters.

In this story, King Ethan’s kingdom has been taken over by the evil Queen Delilah – can you save break King Ethan out of the dungeon and save the kingdom?

As you can see, this creates some great conversation between the students.  They love hearing that they and their friends are a part of the story.  Next year, I will probably go back and adjust the names to include the name of my new students to continue increasing student engagement.

Math Concepts Covered:

In this BreakoutEDU, students will:

• Calculate the area of rectangles, triangles, circles, and trapezoids.
• Calculate the area of combined and shaded figures.
• Use their knowledge of area to solve word problems based on real-life scenarios.

Digital Tools Used:

In this BreakoutEDU, I have used the following digital tools and resources:

• Google Forms (of course!)
• Google Drawings
• Hidden/Embedded Links
• Caesar Cipher
• Unicode

Most of the BreakoutEDU requires students to answer problems on Google Forms but they do have to find the forms and/or break into the forms to solve the problems.

To access the “Escape the Dungeon!” Breakout EDU Digital, click HERE.

Final Thoughts:

It doesn’t matter how many times we do a BreakoutEDU in our math classroom – the students still love it!  I love the engagement and the excitement as they solve the problems.

In addition to this, I saw a huge improvement in their knowledge of the material.  I had given my students a short quiz the week before and many students struggled.  After completing some in-class tutorials and our BreakoutEDU, nearly every student received a 70% or higher on the retake quiz that I offered.  It was a huge increase from the previous week.

One more thing…If you ever create a BreakoutEDU Digital, please make sure that you find someone to test it out for you.  I have to give major props to Aubrey Yeh (@Ms_A_Yeh) for testing out my BreakoutEDU.  If not for her, it would have been a hot mess the next day in class.  There were quite a few errors and permission issues that would have caused some problems for my students.  So – make sure you find those awesome people to test out your BreakoutEDU Digital if you create one for your students.

Enjoy and have a great day!

A couple of weeks ago, myself and a colleague completed our first Digital BreakoutEdu.  Click HERE to read about it.  It was a great success – the students loved it.  More importantly, they were able to use critical thinking skills to solve problems from our content standards.  It’s was the best of both worlds!

As I sat at home today, I found myself reflecting upon what I wanted to do in my classroom with my students this week.  Don’t misunderstand me, I am a serious organizer when it comes to lesson planning.  I am neurotically detailed.  My lesson plans were ready to go, except for tomorrow.  I was just not feeling excited about the lessons I had planned.  They were just kind of…blah.  Not bad – just nothing that I was looking forward to teaching.  And, let’s be honest, if I’m not excited, the students won’t be excited.

So, as I sat at home today, I decided I wanted to build my own Digital BreakoutEdu that revisited the content from our PBL Stock Market Project…One thing led to another and, a couple of hours later, my first Digital BreakoutEdu was created!

I am SO excited to try this out in my classroom tomorrow.  I think that the students will enjoy it and it will be a great way to practice our critical thinking skills, content skills, and produce greater resiliency in my students.

If you are interested in trying it out, click HERE or click the image above.  Feel free to use this in your classrooms, but please let me know how it goes – I am excited to hear how it went and what can be modified for future classes.

Enter Twitter…! (Have I mentioned how much I love Twitter?)  On Twitter, I was able to find an AMAZING Digital BreakoutEdu that was ready to go.  The BreakoutEdu was designed by Tom Mullaney (@TomEMullaney) and his colleagues at Gravelly Hill Middle School.  Click HERE to check it out!

The discovery of this Digital BreakoutEdu came at just the right time.  Our Math department had a planning day, so myself (I teach Math 7 Honors) and the 8th Grade Honors teacher spent about 15-20 minutes trying to “breakout” of this challenge.  It was a lot trickier than we thought it was going to be.  In fact, we needed a few hints (Thank Tom!).  However, it was so important for us to go through the process before introducing this to our students.  After we were able to “breakout”, both of us talked about how fun it would be to combine our two Honors classes and create a giant Digital BreakoutEdu challenge.  So…That’s what we did!

We were able to combine 2 of our classes, since we each teach AVID at different times so not all of our classes lined up.  We had the students create teams of 4, which had to include two 7th grade students and two 8th grade students.  We gave them about an hour to work together to complete the BreakoutEdu and walked around offering hints to help the students.

Here is what we were able to take away from this experience:

• Our students have strong content knowledge, but this doesn’t mean that they have strong critical thinking or deductive reasoning skills.
  • Our students have a strong foundation in combining like terms, using the distributive property, and solving equations.  However, it took them the entire hour to work on the Digital BreakoutEdu.  They are so used to being told exactly what they need to do.  Giving them a complicated puzzle, such as a Digital BreakoutEdu, taught them to slow down, think about what they are being asked to do, and to think outside of the box.
• Some of our students have perseverance, some of them do not.
  • We definitely had mixed reactions from our students during the activity.  For the most part, all of them really enjoyed the challenge.  Every time that the Google Form told them they had a correct answer, they were thrilled!  However, some of our students found this challenge to be frustrating and overwhelming, particularly my 7th grade students.  Again, our students are used to being told what to do in Math and how it should be done.  In the Digital BreakoutEdu, they were given very little direction on how to solve this challenge.  The students that showed perseverance would continue to work and analyze the problems and pages to determine what they needed to do.  The students that did not have perseverance would give up or put their hands in their heads.  For me, it taught me that I need to help these students understand that struggling and failure is okay – it’s how we learn, grow, and succeed.
• Teachers – Complete the Digital BreakoutEdu first!
  • This is a must!  If we hadn’t completed the challenge first, we would have had no idea what the students were being asked to do.  There are so many parts to this activity, such as different Google Forms, sites, and videos, that it was critical that we understood where and what are students were doing.  Take some time and go through it with some fellow teachers.
• Small and large classes are fun, but it is especially fun to work with another teacher.

  

  • During two of my Math classes, I was able to combine with an 8th grade teacher.  During my last class, I just had my group of 7th grade students.  Both options work!  It was really entertaining to watch the 7th and 8th grade students try to work together.  We often focus on collaboration and communication in our classes, but what happens when you combine two grades levels of Math classes?  Well, some students worked really well together and some did not.  I think some of the 7th graders were a bit shy and some of the 8th graders didn’t feel like the 7th graders always pulled their own weight.  However, if we do this again, we now know that this is something that we need to work on with our students.  Also, it is really fun to be able to share this experience with other teachers.  When we had our combined classes, we were able to come up with so many ideas for the next time we do a Digital BreakoutEdu, as well as ways we could share this with our staff.  It

    

    was great teacher-teacher collaboration!

• Digital BreakoutEdu would be great for teachers, whether as an ice-breaker or professional development.
  • I really enjoyed working on the Digital BreakoutEdu with another teacher during our department collaboration and this is an activity aimed at students.  This has the potential for being such an amazing activity for teachers!  First, it would be a great ice-breaker activity at the beginning of the school year.  It would be an amazing way to team up new teachers with veteran teachers to create relationships that may last the entire year.  Even more important though, I think that this would make a great professional development activity.  This is a fun and engaging activity for students that requires them to think critically and develop perseverance.  However, neither of these traits are always natural for our students.  I think that this could be a great conversation starter with teachers on how to help our students develop their critical thinking skills, as well as their perseverance and grit for solving more complex problems.

Overall, the Digital BreakoutEdu experience was a success!  Our students enjoyed the challenge, even though it was often a struggle, and it is definitely something that we would do again in our classrooms.