Epic of Gilgamesh Escape Room Activity
Epic of Gilgamesh Escape Room Activity
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An Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Mesopotamia Escape Room activity. Ideal for fifth grade or sixth grade, the activity is perfect for group work, starting a new ancient history topic, team-building activities or for a fun, engaging and interactive lesson. The activity can be used in English class as it incorporates some ELA skills or in Social Studies.
The activity has been split into four different tasks; your students will need to complete each of the tasks to reveal a word. Together the four words make a phrase for them to escape the room.
Included in this resource:
- Student guidelines for completing the tasks meaning no teacher prep
- A student answer key to complete as they work through the tasks
- An informational text or reading comprehension passage
- A true or false fact sheet & maze
- A crossword puzzle
- A timeline activity & answer key
- A wordsearch puzzle
- Teacher answer sheets for each task
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In Task 1 students will read an informational text about the Epic of Gilgamesh and then find their way through a maze by answering true or false comprehension questions. If they answer the questions correctly they will reveal their first word.
In Task 2 students will use the same informational text to complete a crossword puzzle. Within the puzzle there are several hidden letters which will need to be unscrambled on the completion of the puzzle to reveal the second word.
In Task 3 students will have to cut out 25 timeline task cards before putting them in order from the earliest date to the most recent. When they have finished their task they can glue them onto the answer key which will reveal their third word.
In Task 4 students will have to find the missing words in a wordsearch puzzle before finding a hidden word from the letters that are left over in the puzzle. This hidden word is their fourth and final word.
Students can then complete their student answer key with the four words they revealed before checking with the teacher to see if they have escaped successfully.
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This resource is great for:
- Team-building activities
- Group work
- Research projects
- Reading comprehension
- Emergency sub plans
- Independent work
- Introducing a new topic
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This lesson activity was resourceful and engaging, helping students stay focused while supporting meaningful learning.
I made copies of the puzzles on colored cardstock and put them in plastic sleeves. Students were put in table groups of 3-5 and worked together to solve the puzzles, writing the answers in EXPO markers. (Our school is limiting paper so I only made 6 sets). My students loved working the puzzles together, racing the other teams. I told them that they had to show me their answer to each puzzle before moving forward. There is a typo on the wordsearch. You need to find the last 5 letters, not 6. My admin came in towards the end of one class and was very impressed with how well my students were working together. As teams finished I had them leave a graffiti note on my whiteboard of something they learned about the Epic of Gilgamesh. Great Day! Bonus - I saved all the parts and put this away to use next year, without having to recreate anything!
I used this lesson for sub and to engage students so they were prepared when I returned. Some students breezed through it while others were able to take their time.
This was a fun activity that got my students out of their seats and working with one another!
My students and I used this resource as an in-class book report. I chose students to be team captains, and then they picked teams of three. Most of the teams had gotten to cutting out the timeline when we suddenly had a fire drill, so we will have to return to the assignment next week, but they really loved it and didn't want to stop. I especially like watching the teams try to work together. Some students were really confused; they were students who were working on confidence skills, but they took support from their classmates and accomplished the task together.