Washougal — While plenty of kids dream about escaping the classroom, Andrew Schlauch changed it up and brought the Breakout to his fifth-graders at Hathaway Elementary School.
Schlauch had his students participate in Breakout EDU, an immersive learning games platform that turned his classroom into an academically focused escape room. Students had to work together to solve a series of puzzles, with a goal of opening all locked boxes in a 40-minute time limit.
Heather Christofferson, Hathaway’s librarian, researched the learning kit and received a grant for its purchase from the Washougal Schools Foundation. The students used the Breakout kit for the third time in late May.
“The first time, many gave up before the time elapsed,” Schlauch said in a release from the district. “Now, the teams are working the whole 40 minutes to try to solve the problem. I see them gaining the ability to look at a challenge and consider different points of view and grapple with their team over various approaches to problems.”
