I love to do an escape room! My husband and I have always talked about making our own and luckily for me, my daughter asked for her 9th birthday to be just that! She wanted a beach theme party with an escape room activity. It was a lot of fun planning all the puzzles and finding unique ways to incorporate the beach theme.
For this party I worked really hard to use a lot of materials we already had (one of my planning tips). I scoured our pile of vacation supplies, dug through the bin of “special” shells from the beach, and used MANY decorations from past parties (Survivor Party, Pirate Party, Rainbows/Unicorns/Mermaids Party, Ice Cream Party, and our Halloween Board Game Pirate Party)!
Overall, I wanted the escape room to feel very full and hitting the beach theme. When the kids walked in, they didn’t know what would be part of clues or just decoration.
What’s the Escape Room Goal?
Escape rooms are often set up with the goal of literally “escaping” or exiting a locked room. Another design is to have the participants collect a set of objects or answer a final question (e.g., who is the murderer?) to complete the room.
For our party, instead of locking the kids in a room, the goal was to unlock a chest holding their treat bags. This gave a fun end to the activity (digging through their bags) and made it easier for me watch and give hints.
This crate was built by my husband and used in our Survivor Party.
How Many Puzzles and Locks?
Escape rooms are great for small groups – in my opinion, 4 people is a good number. However, for this party, I knew we would have more kids than that. There were seven kids participating and I was nervous that one or two would dominate solving clues or opening locks.
To make the game a little more fair, I made sure there was one lock for each kid to open. I put their initials on the lock and that was the kid who got to open it or try any codes. This ensured everyone got to open one lock and read out one clue/activity.
I also made the decision, due to age, that every chest they opened would only contain clues for the next lock. For older kids/adults, I would recommend mixing clues together or spreading out clues for one lock over multiple chests. This adds another layer of figuring out if you have all the clues you need before starting to solve a puzzle.
I ended up with 7 puzzles for 7 locks and it took about 30 minutes to complete. That seemed like a good amount of time that kept them engaged. It would have gone longer if I didn’t step in a few times to redirect them, but I was also concerned about some kids losing interest and wandering away.
Locks To Use In Your Escape Room
From our Halloween Puzzles and Riddles Party, I used one lock that opens using a five-letter word (like this one). This was fun to incorporate because it gave a different solution than just number codes.
The final lock was a key padlock. This lock held the treat bag crate shut.
The other locks were all the same style, a three-digit code luggage lock (like these). Each lock had a dot (nail polish worked great!) to mark where the code should align because I didn’t think the kids had a lot of experience with padlocks. I also had an extra lock for the kids to practice with before we started, to make sure they knew how to open that style lock successfully.
Ok, enough set up, show me the escape room!
Message in a Bottle
First, I gave the group a message in a bottle. The bottle had two papers in it. One was a page full of different beach icon images and letters, the second had three lines of images. The kids identified the letter for each icon and the words “three six four” were the result. Then, this code unlocked one of the luggage locks.
Count it Up
The second clue was very simple “The next code is easy, but you need to look around and see how many of these things can be found”. The paper named three different objects. The kids counted how many were in the room and that was the resulting code. It was easy, although I did make a few objects difficult to spot. I liked this code because all the kids split off and counted different things and it made them move around the room.
Picture Perfect
On one wall there was a fishing net with pictures clipped to it. The pictures I chose were random beach pictures (or maybe not so random) but you could use family/friend pictures too. This clue was a bit trickier to figure out:
You don’t need numbers for the next lock
All it takes is one word and you’re ready to rock
Search through the pictures until it clicks
How many show it? The answer is six
Looking at the pictures in the net, there were six photos that had pictures of “boats” (which was the answer). The word padlock opened with this word. There were several pictures with “birds” and some with “people” or the “ocean”. For a large group, having a big wall of photos to look at was another good way to spread the group out and ensure everyone could participate.
Seashell Math
One of the funniest moments from the party was when this next box was opened and the kids saw it had math equations listed! It was just addition and subtraction, but it’s summer break, so this got some groans.
In the box was a variety of seashells and each had a number written on the underside. The paper showed pictures of shells to place in the equations. First they had to identify the correct shells, then flip over the shells to view the numbers, and then simply solve the equations.
I took photos of the shells on a white paper, then cropped the pictures and made the images all the same size. This made it a little more difficult to quickly grab the big or small shells, because you had to focus on the unique details of each shell.
Get Your Popsicles!
I created these fun popsicle sticks out of pool noodles for a fun, beach-themed decoration. Then when I was working on different puzzles for the escape room, I realized it would be a clever place to hide clues!
The kids unlocked a chest that contained a simple spreadsheet-like grid and this clue:
To keep going you’ll need to be quick
Before those sweet treats melt down to the stick
After figuring out they needed to look at the popsicles, they pulled out one stick and saw “K1 B5” written on it. They quickly realized all the sticks had codes and pulled them out. Then they filled in the boxes on the grid until the three-digit code “147” appeared.
To make the popsicles, I cut pool noodles into thirds. Because I needed the sticks to be removed, I cut a small piece of the pool noodle and shoved it in the opening. This created a spot to wedge the large popsicle stick in so it stayed in place. To make some popsicles into double popsicles, I used a toothpick to hold two together. Finally, I used a plastic sewing needle to string fishing line through all the popsicles to make a garland.
Pick Up the Pieces
This next puzzle appeared simple at first – just a puzzle to assemble. The tricky part was identifying the numbers hidden in the picture. I used a blank puzzle and drew an underwater scene on it. I hid three numbers in the picture and then gave this clue:
I’ve fallen to pieces but what can you do?
If you put me together, then I’ll show you
I’ve got numbers right here on my face
But only if you look in the right place
This was the hardest for the kids to solve. They tried counting different objects in the picture or only focusing on the “faces”. When they finally solved it, it was very exciting because there was just one box left!
Oh Coconuts!
The final clue had to result in finding the key to open the treat bag chest. To add more suspense, I hid many different types of keys in the room. There were two big palm trees on the walls and with small brown balloons to look like coconuts. Each coconut had a key inside! The kids had to pop the balloons, retrieve the keys, and try each one! The clue to have them look at the coconuts was:
A key is all you need to find
To finish the puzzles that I have designed
Look all around the beach and sea
Or maybe you need to check up in the tree
Escape Room Wrap Up
The kids really enjoyed the escape room and solving all the puzzles. I really enjoyed making it because it pushed my creativity to come up with different types of puzzles, different ways to get numeric codes, using different materials, and also not making it too complicated. I’m already planning to make another escape room for my Girl Scout troop soon!
