Making Escape Room Puzzles

 This was a challenge! Where do you start? We all had lots of items in our homes that could be useful, but putting them all together in a giant puzzle was daunting. 

Items we had:

• Popsicle sticks
• plastic cups
• lockboxes
• paper bags
• dart guns
• books
• light bright
• sets of drawers
• keys
• jars
• magnets
• orbies
• ball pit balls
• stickers
• chess set
• bannagrams
• puzzles
• rope
• clothespins
• inflatable shark
• statues (think book ends)
• playing cards
• markers
• paint

Just looking at the items caused a mixture of excitement and feelings of inadequacy. So we started asking ourselves, what small puzzle can I make? We came up with a few decoding ideas using things we were going to be making in our classes. Here's a few pictures of codes that we learned about.

The real work began the day we were going to put it all together. We have 5 classes of kids so we set up a room with essentially 5 escape rooms in it. There was a lot of fun, and a lot of crazy. I'll try and share the set up, the goods, the bads, and the what we may have done differently.

Puzzle Ideas to Get You Started!

Popsicle sticks can be hidden in anything. To use this puzzle they would have to find a stick with the shape order (star, funky house shape, bright triangle, question, sun, comparison chart, down pointing triangle, play button, @ symbol, XX, moon shape, and exclamation point in that order.) Then they would need to find the stick with the number order on it. The first stick (Star) would be the second letter down, then the 7th letter down, and so on until  you spell the word Pennsylvania. Side Note: this is a puzzle we didn't use, but we would have kept the letter sticks all together and the "keys" to decoding it within another puzzle that would lead to this. The word Pennsylvania would have led the kids to our map.

Our Map of the United States had several answers on it for different puzzles. We had decided early on that each team would have a black light so we used invisible ink pens to write on our map. One clue was "This state is under siege." (yes we are aware we spelled it wrong, but ink isn't forgiving unless you catch it immediately)

The map was a great addition to our room because it was useable by every team. We also put funny things in different states, this gave a comedic element, but also let the kids know they were on the right track. 

One code that we used was simply made by "erasing" portions of alphabet letters.

I made a code by only drawing parts of each letter of the alphabet on one sheet of paper.

To find the rest of the code, I placed the paper on my window with another blank sheet of paper over it. On the blank sheet I filled in the rest of the letters. You can only see the message if the sheets are placed directly on top of each other.

I decided what words I was going to use, and then began making symbols on the cups. The idea was to have part of the symbol on the inside cup, and turn the outside cup until you find a letter. I used my first sheet of paper as the template for my letters on the inner cup. Then, placing another cup on the outside, I finished the letter, then turned the cup and made some random symbols in two more places on the cup.

IMPORTANT: Label the cups with a number correlating to the word. My word was BEANS so B was labeled 1, E was 2 and so on. I also labeled the insides of the cups with either in or out. Based on if it was the inner cup with the letter, or the outer cup that you spin. The base of each cup is labeled 2in or 2out. Kids like to change things and be unpredictable. Don't let them accidently sabotage your puzzles.

This was the final result with the puzzle solved. If you need to do more than one word (like what is pictured) use a different color marker for each word. This puzzle was resolved with the words BEANS WHITE. The kids then had to look around the room to find the jars of beans. All of the beans were black so they had to decide which to open based on the rubber band color. Rubber bands were actually just balloons that I cut.

These were easier to get different colors than just buying rubber bands and they were much more stretchy. The wider band also helped call attention to the color. Once they realized they needed the white band they opened the jar of beans and found a key to a lockbox. But you could also put paper with invisible ink on it with a clue to the next thing, a missing scrabble tile for another puzzle, or a plastic miniature animal that corelates to a larger animal picture in the room with a clue taped to it.

This was a large jar full of Orbeez with a key in it. The kids had to use a magnet to bring the key to the top. It took some work, but the payoff when they heard the keys clink onto the magnet was priceless. They tried seven times and every time the key would get up to the lip of the jar, it would hit a bump and end up back in the Orbeez. We ended up letting them dump some of the Orbeez out to retrieve the key. (which subsequently led to little kids playing the the Orbeez in the bowl, and them getting spilled and stepped on. If you need to dump them out I'd suggest immediately removing the dumped Orbeez to another room or disposing of them before they cause a mess.) It really was an awesome addition to the puzzle and had a fantastic payoff with the kids faces when the key finally was found with the magnet.

HOW TO CREATE THE ROOM

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH: Pray before you start putting things together. There is a lot going into an activity like this and God's help is your most valuable resource.

DECIDE HOW TO FINISH THE GAME: The kids were working towards unlocking a door that was locked with 5 locks. Some were padlocks, some were bike chains. This room would lead them into a room full of balloons that they had to pop to get the combination to open the giant safe. Sadly I didn't get a picture of the room a locked up, but this is the gist of what the doors looked like.

After each key or code to open the lock was found they opened the door to see a room full of balloons. When the balloons were popped each team got one more clue. It sent them to their pocket constitutions. These were sitting at each groups table when they first entered the room.

Each team had to use their black lights to read what their part of the final code was.

Working together they were able to open this awesome safe (lent to us from one of our families). The safe was full of packets with each kids code name on them. The packets made the kids official spies with sunglasses, invisible ink pens, and their own personal pocket constitution. 

Because we knew where we wanted to go, we could work backwards to make the Puzzles work. Now we had a goal to work towards. Every group needed to find their key or code to get into the balloon room. No one could get to the final safe without everyone getting their locks undone.

GIVE EVERY TEAM AN IDENFIYING MARKER. This can be a specific sticker or you can do like we did when setting up the room. Each group got a type of face card. Blue Backed cards with Hearts, Red Backed cards with hearts, Blue Backed cards with Diamonds, and so on.

(Ignore the boxes at the top for now.) These are the papers we wrote down our puzzles on. We tried really hard to make sure every group got at least one super fun puzzle, and about five puzzles in all. We started by designating a color of star sticker to indicate what group would be getting what clues. If we had extra keys they were tapped to the master sheet for each puzzle. Our next job was to get each of the teams to find their Key. So we started hiding keys. We went with one group at a time, hid a key and then made a puzzle to find that key. Then a puzzle to find that puzzle and so on until every group had five puzzles.

GOLD STAR PUZZLE

This team reads:

1. Academic in box w/spiral
2. Key in Orbeez
3. Spiral
4. Paint the bag -> Orbeez
5. Poison gas Choice Thomas Jefferson 5cent
6. Coin puzzle to find.

(You have my apologies for not having pictures of everything. I can somewhat guide you through what we did, but ultimately you will have to make the puzzles work for you.)

We hid their key inside this book.

Which was inside this bookshelf.

To guide them to the bookshelf we used the word Academics (the bookshelf was the only "library" in the room) To find the word academics they had to solve a puzzle by finding a rod and a piece of paper with letters on it. Hence the number three on the master sheet: Spiral

We traced where the paper was supposed to start and when they wrapped the paper around the stick it gave them the word they were looking for. (The word pictured is not the word we used its just for an example) Now we had to hide the stick and the paper.

We hid the stick in a white paper bag and hid the spiral in a lockbox. Now we needed to guide them to these items. The lockbox had a key which we hid in the Orbeez Jar. The white paper bag was just on a table in the room with a paintbrush and water. We decided to let the bag lead to the orbeez, so we wrote on the white back with white crayon "The Orbeez stole the key" The kids would have to paint the bag with watercolors to find the message to get to the orbeez. Now we had to get the kids to the white paper bag, and find the paint to paint it with.

Here's the bag on the table with water and brush but no paint (and another groups puzzle beside it).

We decided to hide some items around the room with identifying markers for the kids to find and bring back to their table. This was a group of mugs with decoy keys in the wrong mugs and magnets to help get Orbeez later in the game. The main items in these mugs were the magnets and the paint for the paper Bag.

This is how it was placed on the table so the kids knew to take all of the items together. The Poison referenced on the master sheet was for the riddle on these mugs. Each mug was labeled and the kids had to decide what was right to get the correct item.

We also hid a nickel puzzle in this set of drawers (third drawer down on the left) that was marked with their identifying card. This was an item in the room they had to find and bring back to their table. Once the puzzle was complete they could use their black light to read the hidden message that said paint the bag.

Now we needed a way for the kids to know what their identifying marker was. No one knew what to pic up in the room until they found out their first clue. So now we get to the start of the game. To find out what their identifying mark was, the kids were given a puzzle at their table. 

The Clue on the puzzle was a hand drawn envelope and a star sticker. ALL of the kids immediately set to work doing the actual puzzle. 

On the back of the puzzle we used one of the codes they had learned in class. Once decoded it said, "think outside the box." This then lead them to the hand drawn envelope. 

They needed a bit of direction throughout so it is imperative that each team has an adult who is familiar with the puzzle to help them stay on track.

We had one mailbox within the room that had an envelope for each team in it.

Each team knew what envelope was theirs based on the color of sticker on their beginning puzzle.

This is their identifying mark. The team can now look for items in the room with this card on them.

Every group started with the puzzles on the table that lead to the mailbox. So I will skip that part for the rest of the puzzles and end at each group finding their key or code to the door with the balloons.

SILVER STAR PUZZLE

Master Sheet for Silver Star Puzzle

1. Key in white jar with beans
2. 2 doll house have twist cups to spell out white beans
3. light bright says great compromise gave us 2 houses of government
4. grid looks like light bright
5. box has balls w/code that goes on battleship grid
6. sissors locked with code 1788 to open box of balls pg 77 New York and Virginia voted "yea" in what year.

Working backwards again we start by needing to find the key. The key was placed in a jar of beans. There were 5 jars in total so the kids needed to pick the correct jar.

It would be helpful to time how long each puzzle should take beforehand and have times on the master sheet so the adult in the room can make sure they are hitting each clue on time to keep your event from running over.

SPY Camp

Let me start off by saying, this was a VERY involved camp. But we also had the biggest turnout and SO MUCH FUN! You can do this on a budget. You can make big camps in your area that every kid will enjoy if you can get the parents involved.

First: Choose your guest speaker. This should be a historical figure and the person playing them should be committed to dressing up and acting the part. We have found this to be an effective way to get the kids engaged. 

        We chose Nathan Hale, who became known as America's first spy.

Second: Choose your classes. We chose classes with the intent of showing the kids America's legacy of hero's. Classes that we chose are under the table in the middle of the page.

Since we have such a large group of kids, we have parents assigned as "hall monitors" or "door guards" to keep children within the building. This is an ALL HANDS ON DECK event. Typically kids are trying to obey the rules, but please remember that even the best kids don't always remember or know where they're supposed to be. 

All of our kids are signed in at the beginning of camp. They are all given a lanyard with their name, their group name, and on the back is a list of our memory challenges. (Side note, this is not something we have implemented yet but something that we feel is a good idea. There will be children who's parents will not want them photographed. We use red and blue lanyards. If a child is not supposed to be photographed they get a white lanyard. The kids will not notice the lanyard difference, but your photographer can be aware of who they need to keep out of the photos.)

Any extra effort goes a long way, we bought brown paper rolls in the office supply section at walmart. rolls were $5 each and we used less than two. These were used for table runners and also an insignia on the front of the building.

Insignia inner blue circle is the size of a pie pan, outer circle was hand drawn so to distract from its irregular shape we added the points around the circle. This was all drawn and colored with pencil first and colored in with markers. Kids were then stopped in the entryway and "wanded" by our "security staff" (we had several of our youth leaders come to training before camp to learn how to check people in to our high security spy facility. Our wands were just short plastic pipes. This was such a great step and really set the tone for our kids.) Kids were instructed to come in disguise since they were training to be spies. There were lots of wigs and sunglasses, we even had one kid come dressed as an old man.

All kids had to punch in the correct code on their keypad 1776 (keypads are calculators that we used stick tac on the doors) Kid in the suit is one of our Youth Leaders trained to make sure each person that came in punched in the correct code. We had two keypads for faster entry into the building.

As the kids progressed through the hallway they were required to do a hand scan and also scan their nametags. You don't have to be high tech for this to be fun. 

This is the inside of our "scanning" machine. Its's just a gift box with a small hole cut so a glow stick will emit a light underneath it. We then attached it to another box so there was room to scan a card. Presto! Magic name tag scanner.

All of our kids were then admitted to our room where we began our meeting. We always start with singing "O I Love America" to help them settle in. We hold a flag ceremony, recite the pledge and sing the first verse of the National Anthem. You can reference our class schedule up top. We always make sure to have a game during class time as well. This time it was a laser maze and bomb maze.

Lasers are red yarn with jingle bells tied to them so kids know if they touched a laser. Remind kids to take off jackets. We had several kids do really well only to have to start over because their hood on their jacket caught a strand of yarn.

Bomb maze is a partner activity. Helium balloons and spikey balloons we found on amazon. One partner wears a blindfold and the other directs them to the other side of the room, hopefully, without hitting any bombs.

We ended the evening with an escape room where the kids had to use knowledge learned in the classes to help solve puzzles. Each of the five teams puzzles eventually lead to a portion of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Every table had a pocket edition with part of their code to get into the safe written in invisible ink within it. So the beginning of the preamble would know their instructions go first. We were lucky enough to have a family with a personal safe that we were aloud to use. So your instructions for opening the safe will be different than ours. I'll make an actual post with some of our puzzles to help you get an idea of what you can do. It is totally doable on a budget I PROMISE. 

This is the view the kids got as they entered the escape room from the stage. All groups had their names on a table so it was obvious where they were to start. Please keep in mind that little kids are going to want to go find clues immediately. We had to reset several puzzles because the little kids were taking anything that looked like a clue. I would just suggest that you go over some rules with kids before they start looking at the items in the room. We used face cards to distinguish who's clue was who, but you could also use stickers that were individualized to each group.

Each kid was rewarded with the rank of spy, a pocket declaration of independence, sunglasses, and a invisible ink pen. We had created badges for the parents last minute and it would be fun to include a spy badge for each of the kids. Ours were just color printed and laminated.

Patriot Camp

You can choose to do it alone, but you don't have to. Welcome to our Patriot Camp. We started because we felt the need to teach our children in depth about the history of America. We want this for all American kids, so we are publishing what we've done so that you can take our ideas and run with them.

First, we have our camps set up so that families only pay for the cost of the activities. We aren't here to make money, we just want to educate and have fun. But that means every parent has a job and older kids are involved in helping the younger ones. We split our groups into teams and currently (as of this post) have about 62 kids participating in our camp. 

Camp starts together with everyone singing 'Oh I love America' to help them remember it's time to sit. We go over a few announcements and have a prayer. We then have a flag ceremony and say the pledge together. 

Our kids are split into 5 groups so we have 5 classes that parents will teach each camp. We try to keep classes engaging for kids and keep with a theme for the day. Each class should last about 20min, and teams will rotate around to each of the classes.

After classes we usually have the kids meet together again for a group game and quick review of the day. We end with a prayer and everyone is expected to help clean up.

Parents who come all have a job. Jobs that we have every Patriot Camp are: 

Prep building (decorations, set up "classrooms")

Teach a class

help teach a class

run a nursery for younger siblings

take pictures

tell classes when its time to rotate

hall monitors

We started holding Camp in 2022 at the park so we wouldn't have to pay for a building. We have been fortunate to reach several families with our message of freedom and have grown large enough to need a building for our meetings. We have rented out personal property from people we knew, rented a gym from our community center, and have been blessed with a church that has let us use their building. If you need a building, chat with your local library. They may have resources that you haven't thought of before. Don't be afraid to ask local businesses if they would be willing to rent their building by the hour. Our camps last from 12-3:30. Try asking about different times, YOU CAN DO IT!