Craig M Sheil

In talking about what team bonding experience teachers should partake in this year on the first workshop day of the school year, it was determined that we should give #BreakoutEDU a try. So in a collaborative team effort, Zanna Blaney, Dean of Students, Jessica Gilcreast, librarian, Bill Hagen, Principal, and I, as well as other Bulldog team leaders (known as the Decade Dogs), we were able to pull off seven simultaneous Breakouts for the whole professional staff to participate in.

Preparation

Three of us met over the summer to determine what task we wanted the staff to participate in. We decided to use one that was already made, even though we thought it might be fun to incorporate our high school’s history into the activity since we were going to celebrate our school being open for 10 years. The game that we used was called Time Warp. We did this for a couple of reasons…it was geared for adults, the theme was generic enough that all parties would be able to participate in the breakout, and the size of the group was large enough (we needed to split up around 120 people into 7 groups).

Supplies

Jess Gilcreast had to determine what items needed to be purchased in order to run 7 different breakouts at once. Jess quickly discovered that the items were easy to find in Amazon due to many other people thinking the same thing…just buy it on Amazon. Jess had purchased two breakout boxes at the end of last school year and we were able to coordinate with another school in the district to borrow some of their supplies from their breakout boxes. We were also fortunate enough that our principal had some left over wood at his house and was willing to create 5 additional boxes for us.

Once all of the supplies arrived and the necessary papers were printed, we then put the boxes together. Must say, this took a bit of time, especially since it was our very first time doing this. We also double checked things worked since there were going to be seven different groups running at the same time. What is extremely helpful though is that for every game, there are written instructions as well as a video that help walk you through how the game is run, with the combinations to the locks. Very helpful!

Breakout Day

On the day of the breakout, we set up the seven rooms that were being used for the games and explained how the game was going to run to our other team leaders. A demonstration of where the clues were and why they worked/were connected with each other was explained.

Then the entire professional staff met in the theater. Since they had no clue what they were doing (or even knew what was up our sleeves), we showed the following video. We wanted to make it fun.

We then followed up with some more directions and broke staff up into the seven groups (thanks Zanna). The groups went to their designated spots and the game started. Once the staff broke into their box, they found some celebratory items to wear (celebrating the school turning 10). We all then meet back in the theater to talk about the activity as a whole group.

Below are some pictures from a couple of groups while they were trying to breakout.

Tips

• If classrooms do not have much on the walls to distract people, print additional things to help cause some confusion.
• Make sure staff whose rooms that are being used are assigned to a completely different classroom so that it is not too easy for them to find clues.
• Split up your teams and make sure they have cross-discipline representation. Make sure administration is also included in the activity.
• Have fun.
• Make sure all team leaders have each other’s cell phone number and group text each other. This way, if someone forgets something, they can quickly ask the other team leaders to make sure that the game is run correctly. This was also a great way to know what teams have solved what clues – great motivator.
• Did I mention that you need to have fun?