Beginners Guide to Breakout Games for School Counseling

Want a fun and engaging way to teach your school counseling curriculum? Breakout Games for School Counseling can be your answer… read more to find out!

What are Breakout Games?

The trending Breakout Games are made to imitate “escape room” strategies. They are inclusive and interactive games that can be played by just about anyone. One of the many positives is that It allows kids with different skill levels, to use their imagination and work as a team to discover clues. The answers to these clues can unlock locks or find things around the room. The idea is for all the students to find the ending to the story and in turn, “solving the mystery”!

Check out the video below, explaining Breakout Boxes, from Riverside Unified!

The fun thing about breakout games is that you get to be the creator. You can make it as hard or easy as you need it to be and you can make it about whatever topic you need it to be about. However, if you cringed at the word create… and you don’t have time to create MAGIC… You can buy or score freebies here and here…. Then tweak them to meet your needs.

The amazing thing about counseling is we are teaching standards that can easily be covered or connected with other subjects like Health, English & Social Studies. So, if you can’t find what you’re looking for try using those subject words in your search too.

Here is an info-graphic, by Sylvia Duckworth, explaining the benefits of doing breakouts.

 

Pros of Tangible Breakout Games

• Interactive
• Lots of items to manipulate
• Gets kids moving
• Inclusive for all
• Promotes Teamwork and Social Skills
• Promotes Problem Solving

Cons of Tangible Breakout Games

• Hard to find for elementary (especially k-2)
• Harder to setup (especially for counselors who teach in all classrooms)
• Expensive to Buy Kits (if you use Breakout Edu)
• Time-Consuming to put together, plan and set lock codes

Pros of Digital Breakout Games

• Money Saver (even for Breakout Edu)
• Inclusive for all
• FREE to create on your own (Google Forms)
• Digital Locks save time by not having to set lock codes
• Promotes Problem Solving
• Promotes Teamwork and Social Skills
• Automatically Organized… no repeating setup

Cons of Digital Breakout Games

• Kids not able to move around as much and manipulate objects (unless you create it that way to have an interactive piece)
• Younger students may have a harder time navigating computer skills

Where Can I Buy These?

Breakout Edu Kit (w/ account access): 1 Kit $150 or 6 Kits $800

Or… keep reading to find out how to make your own!

Want to Make Your Own?

If you are ready to tackle a tangible box and create your own, I have listed out the resources you will need to get started. The information below will make one Breakout Box. You will still need to create or buy the scenario that your students will interact with.

3 Digit Lock
4 Digit Lock
ABC Lock
Directional Lock
Key Lock
UV Pen (Invisible Ink)
UV Light (Black Light)
Hasp Lock
1 Box w/ a way to lock

You can always check out TpT for Breakout Game Scenarios!

Ready to Make Your Own Digital Breakout Game?

First of all, you need to be fairly comfortable with using Google Forms…. just because there are a lot of steps. It is totally do-able!

Here is a video explaining the process! If you want to check out my very first Digital Breakout… click here!

Variation for Kindergarten & 1st Grade

One of the easiest and most time efficient way to conduct a breakout game with early childhood students is to Breakout Together! You can have the students sit on the carpet around you as you start with the story starter.

Here are the steps below…

1. Give a story prompt
2. Have students find different size lockboxes hidden around the room with locks on them.
3. Open Clue #1 together (in envelope)
4. Have students solve the clues together (puzzle, math problem, spelling word, etc)
5. After a clue is found… unlock the box to find the next clue… or proceed to next clue envelope
6. Repeat for Clues 2-5 until the mystery is solved

Breakout Games are super fun and engaging! I hope this helps clear up any questions or hesitations you may have had about using them in the classroom. Best of luck! Enjoy!