KITE FESTIVAL RESCUE: a math escape room game for Grades 2 and 3
It is the morning of the Kite Festival at Swirly Sands, beside the golden pyramid. In the night a whirlwind blew the six festival kites all over the sands, and Tassel the jerboa, who looks after the kites, needs help. Six places at the festival are six stations. Each station gives a crew ONE number. The six numbers lift the Kite Train up a pyramid of bricks, and the four-digit launch code gets the kites flying.
THIS IS A PRINTABLE ESCAPE ROOM GAME for a classroom (4 to 6 teams) or for 1 to 6 children at home. It is not a book and not a worksheet pack: crews move around six stations, write their numbers in a Flight Log, and crack one last lock together.
HOW IT PLAYS (50 to 65 minutes, or two shorter lessons)
- Story and warm-up: crews learn the rule of the day (every brick is the two bricks under it added together)
- Six stations, about 4 to 10 minutes each; every crew starts at a different one
- The Kite Train: a pyramid path. Crews add their six numbers one kite at a time, and after each kite the train climbs to the brick that shows the total so far. Four gold bows on the way up give the code
- A wrong station number has no brick to climb to, and the place where the train stops points to the kite to check (or the one before it)
- Launch! Certificates for everyone
Two Levels, One Answer Key
- Breeze cards, Grade 2: add and subtract within 20, even and odd, rows of up to 5, a hundreds chart, sides to add up in centimeters, tens and ones, adding and subtracting within 100
- Gust cards, Grade 3: multiplication and division facts, a times table with its rows to find, perimeter with missing sides, hundreds, tens and ones, adding and subtracting within 1,000
- Both levels of a station give the SAME number, so mixed classes and split grades play side by side and you check everyone with one key
Seven Kinds Of Puzzle
- 3 kinds of math pyramid puzzle: Bundle Stack (a pyramid of kite sticks drawn as bundles of ten and single sticks, with crates of a hundred for Grade 3), Kite Stack (a kite-shaped pyramid: above the cross stick a brick is the two under it added, below it a brick is the two above it subtracted) and the Kite Train (a pyramid path)
- 4 hands-on puzzles: Paint the Sail (color every patch with an even answer and the sail shows the station number), Kite Rows (sand hides most of the kites: count one row, count the rows, add or multiply), Sky Squares (a kite cut out of a hundreds chart or a times table: put its numbers back) and Edge Ribbon (ribbon goes round every edge: which kite needs the most?)
- 2 more kinds of math pyramid, the Wide Stack and the Row Stack, are in the free bonus folder: 5 kinds of math pyramid puzzle in all
- Stations are numbered from the easiest to the hardest
- Every card sits one step below the top of its grade, so a crew can finish it together
- All sentences on the children's cards are 14 point or larger, in a typeface made for early readers
Skills Practiced
Adding and subtracting within 20, 100 and 1,000, even and odd, place value (ones, tens, hundreds), equal rows and repeated adding, multiplication and division facts, patterns in the hundred chart and the times table, adding lengths, perimeter. A skills page lists the US Common Core codes for Grade 2 and Grade 3 (a planning guide; not endorsed by the standards' authors).
WHAT YOU GET (instant download, 4 PDF files)
- Full kit, US Letter (39 pages)
- Full kit, A4 (39 pages)
- Projector slides, 16:9 (12 slides: story, mission, the rule, move signal, countdown, the Kite Train, launch, answers)
- Tablet edition with tap-to-jump hint and answer buttons (classroom play needs the printed cards)
- Free bonus folder (QR code inside): High Flyers (4 early-finisher cards with answers and hints) and ink-saver editions of every page
Inside The Kit
- For the teacher: what to print and how many (with sheet counts), a room plan, a 65-minute and a 50-minute plan with the move signals by the clock, a step-by-step script that also works without a projector, skills, a 3-page answer key with solved pictures, 3-step hint cards for every puzzle (where to start, the method, the worked answer)
- For every crew: mission page, Flight Log with the warm-up and three hint ribbons, crew badges and job cards (Reader, Writer, Checker, Runner)
- For the room: six full-color station signs
- The puzzles: 12 station cards (six stations, two levels) and two Kite Train cards
- Two-up certificates with type-in names, and a design-your-own-kite page to color
You Will Need
Printer (color looks best; ink-saver pages are in the bonus folder), paper, tape, pencils, one crayon or colored pencil for each crew, a clock. It is a paper game: no locks, boxes or other props. About 30 minutes to print and set up the first time. The children need no scissors (you cut the certificates, and the optional crew badges, before class). Every crew writes on its own cards (or use plastic sleeves and dry-erase pens to save paper).
Good To Know
- Digital download only: nothing is shipped.
- Print at 100% (actual size), single-sided.
- Play times are plans, not promises: classes differ. Hints keep every crew moving.
- Not tested with a class: it was solved and set up from the printed pages alone by separate AI sessions, and their notes were acted on.
- No holiday theme and no real festival: it suits a review day, end of year, back to school, a windy spring week, a math club or a party.
- Love math pyramids? Creouts Publishing also publishes math pyramid puzzle books in paperback: see creouts.com/pyramid-puzzle-books/.
License
For one teacher's own classes, or one family or club. Print as many copies as you need for your own students. No resale, sharing, uploading or claiming as your own; no AI training.
Digital download, nothing is shipped. Because files can be copied at once, we cannot take them back after download; if something is wrong with your file, write to us and we will fix or refund it.
