THE FINAL BELL COUNTDOWN: an end-of-year math escape room game for Grades 4 and 5
It is the last day of school at Dunebell School, beside the golden pyramid. At 3:00 the Final Bell rings and summer begins! But the rope of the big brass bell is locked in a box with a word lock. Every year Dindle the meerkat, the school's bell-keeper, hides the password around the school, and only a class that remembers the whole year can find it. Six places around the school are six stations, and each gives ONE number. In the finale, crews color every tile of the Bell Banner that shows one of their six numbers: six right numbers paint the password in big block letters.
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 on a Countdown Card, and crack one last lock together. Everything is paper: no padlocks or boxes needed.
HOW IT PLAYS (60 to 75 minutes, or two shorter lessons)
- Story and Bell Check warm-up: a little add-up pyramid and a little paper fan that teach the rules of the day
- Six stations, about 7 to 9 minutes each; every crew starts at a different one
- The Bell Banner: color the tiles that show your six numbers. Right numbers paint big block letters; a wrong number leaves a hole, and the likely slips paint stray tiles, so crews know which station to check before they ever read the password
- The password opens the bell rope box: ring in the summer! Certificates for everyone
Two Levels, One Answer Key
- Hour Hand cards, Grade 4: decimals to hundredths, division by one digit with remainders, angles in degrees, area and perimeter, quarter inches on a line plot, factors and multiples to 100
- Minute Hand cards, Grade 5: decimals to thousandths, two-digit divisors, angles as parts of a turn, a clue for two garden beds together, eighths of an inch, bigger numbers on the climbing wall
- Both levels of a station give the SAME number, so mixed classes play side by side and you check everyone with one key
Six Stations, A Whole Year Of Math
- The Library, Book Return: shelve the returned books by their decimal call numbers; the slots of the two gold-starred books make the station number
- The Gym, The Climbing Wall: a pyramid maze where every hold must be a multiple or a factor of the last
- The Art Room, Fan Stack: angles add up rib by rib on a paper fan (not drawn to scale: use the numbers)
- The Playing Field, Field Day Teams: four division stories where the remainder means something different each time; the answers build an add-up math pyramid with a check brick
- The School Garden, Garden Plots: find the missing sides from the bed areas, then the fence all the way round
- The Science Lab, Sprout Chart: measure bean sprouts on their rulers, make a line plot, add the fractions
- Stations are numbered from the easiest to the hardest, as our AI test solves ranked them
3 Kinds Of Math Pyramid Puzzle
- In the kit: the add-up stack (the Bell Check warm-up and the Field Day Stack) and the Climbing Wall, a pyramid maze
- In the free bonus folder: the Whiteboard Stack, a math pyramid whose bottom bricks are sums with parentheses (order of operations)
WHAT YOU GET (instant download, 4 PDF files)
- Full kit, US Letter (40 pages)
- Full kit, A4 (40 pages)
- Projector slides, 16:9 (12 slides: story, mission, rules, move signal, countdown to the Final Bell, the Bell Banner, summer!, answers)
- Tablet edition with tap-to-jump hint and answer buttons (classroom play needs the printed cards)
- Free bonus folder (QR code inside): The Summer Send-Off (4 fast-finisher cards with answers and hints: Pinwheel Stack, The Big Wall, Whiteboard Stack, The Big Garden) 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 75-minute and a 60-minute plan by the clock, a step-by-step script that also works without a projector, skills with Common Core codes, an 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, Countdown Card with the warm-up and three hall passes (hint tokens), crew badges and job cards (Reader, Recorder, Checker, Runner)
- For the room: six full-color station signs
- The puzzles: 12 station cards (six stations, two levels) and two Bell Banner cards
- Two-up certificates with type-in names
You Will Need
Printer (color looks best; ink-saver pages are in the bonus folder), paper, pencils, colored pencils or crayons, scrap paper, a clock and tape for the signs. 30 to 40 minutes to print and set up the first time. 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.
- Made for the last weeks of school, and just as good for test-prep review, summer school, the first week of Grade 5 or 6, a math club or a last-day party at home.
- US units (feet and inches) and US Common Core codes.
- 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.
