Faculty Meeting meets Team Building with Holiday #BreakOutEDU

December is always a month filled with equal amounts of energy, excitement and teacher exhaustion. As I looked at our monthly staff calendar and saw the plethora of extra activities, assemblies and stresses on the teachers, I wanted our staff meeting dedicated to building rapport and relationships as much as I wanted to build knowledge and capacity for teachers to use in their classrooms. I wanted to provide teachers with alternative learning activities and experiences for their classrooms that were rigorous and transcended the typical pre-winter break movie.

A #BreakOutEDU was just the answer. With some kits recently purchased for our Enrichment Program from https://www.breakoutedu.com/free, I wanted out staff to experience the excitement and learning potential of the BreakOutEDU experience while building their understanding and ability to apply it in their own classrooms.

I worked with a teacher leader in my building to create the “Elf in a Box” staff meeting experience. With some Pentatonix holiday music blaring on my Monster Rocker, candy canes as a sweet and festive treat, some strobe lights flashing in red and green, and reproducible resources printed off for staff to use immediately with their students following the experience, we were ready to engage the staff in a fun and exciting experience.

As teachers entered, they were given some basic instructions by the teacher leader and immediately went to work. Staff gelled instantly as they set off to solve multiple puzzles to get one of Santa’s elves out of the box. As I observed, I noticed their strong sense of communication and collaboration, natural leadership abilities surface, individuals assume unique roles on their teams and more. They were heavily engaged in critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and communication. I smiled knowing that this experience was modeling the types of skills and learning for their students in their own classrooms.

With competitive hearts, the staff quickly worked together to solve the multitude of puzzles required to #BreakOutEDU and save the elf. It wasn’t long until I heard from staff members requesting the kits and supplies for their own classrooms and students.

This activity doesn’t need to be applied seasonally, https://www.breakoutedu.com/free, has a multitude of resources and sample lessons that can be used in any grade level and content area. Our Kindergarten team was able to find resources just as readily and easily as our fifth grade team and use the same resources and BreakOut kit.