After attending an optional PD, Mrs. Hill, 4th grade teacher at Montrose, approached me about doing a digital breakout with her class. I had heard chatter about digital breakouts, but I didn’t really know what they looked like in an elementary setting or how to create one. After a brief training with Judy Christopher, I was excited and ready to make my first breakout! Mrs. Hill was looking for a fraction review activity for her students, so I pulled a variety of skills from 4th grade pacing and started designing my locks and clues. I presented my original plan to the K-5 ITRT team, made some adjustments, and then took it to the classroom. Here is the finished Fraction Frenzy Digital Breakout. Talk about student engagement! The kids were so excited about this challenge and were working diligently with their partner to be the first to unlock all 4 locks.
Building pizza puzzles to reveal the 2 fractions to add.
Deciphering the equivalent fractions lock.
The time put into building this digital breakout was completely worth it when I got to see the students react like this in response to solving fraction problems!
I took a few minutes to have the students reflect on the experience and several reported that they “liked the challenge” and “enjoyed having to work it out to find the answers to the locks.” I can’t wait to create more digital breakouts! The K-5 ITRT team is excited about them too! We have compiled the breakouts that we have been creating into this Elementary Digital Breakout Google Site. Check it out and check back periodically for recently added breakouts. As always, let me know if you want to try one of these in your classroom. I would love to come facilitate!
