The days leading up to Winter Break can feel like pure chaos. Between holiday excitement, special events, and the countdown to break, keeping students focused on learning feels nearly impossible.
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “How do I keep my students reading and working when their minds are already on vacation?”—you’re in the right place my friend!
That’s why I love using interactive ELA escape rooms in the classroom this time of year. They combine the magic of storytelling with meaningful literacy practice, so students are completely engaged while still mastering key ELA skills. In this post, you’ll see how a winter escape room like Free the Oak King! can turn those restless December days into your students’ favorite learning adventure of the year.
This escape room describe below is perfect for grades 4-6. If you need one that is better suited for grades 8-12, check out this post where I share about my Gothic-inspired Haunted House escape room!
The Problem: When Winter Excitement Meets Low Engagement
The week before Winter Break is one of the hardest times to keep students motivated. Even your most dedicated readers start losing focus, and traditional lessons don’t always hold their attention.
You want to keep building skills and reinforcing reading comprehension, but worksheets and standard quizzes just don’t cut it in December.
So how can we make literacy meaningful and exciting when students are counting down the minutes to break?
The Solution: Turn Reading into an Adventure!
The secret is simple—wrap your reading skills in a story that students have to figure out.
That’s where ELA escape rooms come in. These interactive experiences transform reading comprehension into a hands-on challenge where every text, clue, and puzzle moves students deeper into the adventure.
Here’s how you can make it work in your classroom:
1. Build Context Through Storytelling
Before students start solving, draw them into the story! Give them a short introduction—like the one in Free the Oak King!—that sets the stage for their mission.
Emma, Zoe, and Max walk through a magic portal in the woods by the recess playground. (Yes, I took a little inspiration from Narnia!) They have entered a magical world where heroes have been summoned to help break Jack Frost’s curse and free the Oak King so that spring can come again!
Your students then take on the avatars of these three young heroes to help save the day. Using their ELA skills, they solve four challenges (or trials) to break the curse. This helps students practice inferencing, prediction, and identifying key details as they become the unsuspecting heroes of Spring.
Would you like a sneak peek at the opening story for this escape room, click here!
2. Embed ELA Skills Into Each Challenge
Each trial or puzzle should reinforce an essential literacy skill—context clues, main idea, sequencing, grammar, or sensory details. The trick is making those skills part of the mystery!
In Free the Oak King!, students solve riddles using context clues, identify sensory details in a short passage, and piece together a final spell using proper sequencing and grammar. They’re applying skills without even realizing it.
For example, this is the passage they are given for Trial Two:
The lake shimmered beneath a pale blue sky, the ice smooth as glass and bitterly cold to the touch. A faint humming drifted through the air, like a song trapped beneath the frozen surface. Every few seconds, the glow of golden light flickered deep below the ice, faint but warm — a color that didn’t belong in such a cold place. The wind howled, sharp and biting, but when Emma knelt closer, she thought she heard something else beneath it. A soft whisper: “Find the light… melt the frost…”
Students answer questions that guide them to notice sensory details:
Which sensory detail seems out of place in this icy setting?
(the warm, golden light)
What colors are mentioned in the passage?
(pale blue, golden)
What sounds can be heard?
(humming, whisper, wind howling)
What textures or temperatures are described?
(smooth, cold, biting)
3. Encourage Collaboration and Critical Thinking
When students work together to solve clues, they naturally discuss the text, justify answers, and defend their thinking—all higher-level comprehension skills. Plus, collaboration keeps even your reluctant readers invested in the experience.
You’ll see students referencing details, rereading passages, and explaining their reasoning to teammates without even realizing they’re practicing core literacy strategies. It’s the kind of authentic, student-driven engagement we all hope for. Especially during those tricky pre-break days!
Seasonal vs. Holiday Fun
What I extra love about activities like this (on top of the sneaky learning they are doing) is that it’s an inclusive way to celebrate the season. This is the type of fun activity you can add in to celebrations without it being tied to religion or the holidays.
Free the Oak King!
If you’re ready to bring a little winter magic into your classroom, Free the Oak King! is a ready-to-use ELA escape room designed especially for grades 4–6.
In this interactive story, students join Emma, Zoe, and Max as they enter a snowy realm ruled by the Holly King. When the Oak King—the guardian of spring—is trapped under Jack Frost’s icy curse, your students must read closely, solve challenges, and work together to break the spell.
What’s Included:
- A teacher presentation to introduce the story
- 4 reading-based escape room trials:
- Trial 1: Riddle & context clues
- Trial 2: Sensory details & main idea
- Trial 3: “Who, What, Why?” text analysis
- Trial 4: Unscramble the sentence for sequencing and grammar
- Reward clues that guide students from one trial to the next
- Printable story passages, clue cards, and answer keys
Winter-Themed ELA Resources for Upper Elementary
Would you love more creative and engaging resources to use to sharpen ELA skills in upper elementary grades? Check out my Winter-Themed ELA bundle!
In this ELA bundle, you will find all kinds of winter-themed goodness that will be engaging and stretch your students skills.
13 Creative writing prompts (complete with word banks to include) such as:
You wake up to find that school has been canceled because of a huge snowstorm! What do you and your friends decide to do with your free day? Tell the story of your snowy adventure. Use at least 3 of the words in the word bank in your story.
Or
You receive a snow globe as a gift. However, you soon discover that every time you shake it, you are transported INSIDE the snow globe! Draw what is inside of it and then write about what you see when you enter this magical snowy world. Use at least 3 of the words in the word bank in your story.
4 Short Stories + Questions: Winter-themed short stories come with comprehension questions aligned with RL1, RL2, and RL3
2 Winter Solstice Myth + Questions: Introduce students to Finnish and British mythology with a simplified, captivating retelling of 2 Winter Solstice myths.
3 Winter Mad Libs: Have some extra fun with these fill-in-the-blank activities, where students use parts of speech to create their own silly, wintery stories!
Final Thoughts
As the countdown to Winter Break ticks closer, you don’t have to choose between classroom management and meaningful learning. With an escape room like Free the Oak King!, you can channel all that pre-break energy into something magical and purposeful.
Students will be reading, thinking critically, and collaborating—all while immersed in a story that feels like an adventure, not an assignment. So this December, skip the busywork and let your classroom buzz with the kind of excitement that comes from discovery, teamwork, and a little bit of winter wonder!
Around the World With Mrs. C 