Math Escape Room for Grades 3-4, Gear Jam, Choose-Your-Path Classroom Game

Designed by Creouts Publishing using original prompt(s) and AI (Claude by Anthropic). Illustrations made with AI image tools. Every puzzle is computer-checked to have exactly one answer.

THE GREAT GEAR JAM: a choose-your-path math escape room for Grades 3 and 4
Your class is on a trip to the Clatterby Workshop, beside the golden pyramid. Dollop the hamster drops a jar of jam into the Great Gear. The gears stick, and every door in the workshop locks. The class works through three rooms to reach the Great Gear, and after each door THE CLASS VOTES which way to go. Two forks make four ways through the workshop, and each way has its own restart code and its own ending.

THIS IS A PRINTABLE ESCAPE ROOM GAME for the whole class (3 to 6 teams) or for 1 to 6 players at home. It is not a book, not a gamebook and not a worksheet pack: crews solve team cards at their own tables, Runners take their numbers to the door, and the class chooses its path together.

HOW IT PLAYS (about 60 minutes, or two shorter lessons)
- Story and warm-up: crews learn the rule of a math pyramid (every cog is the two cogs under it added together)
- Room 1, the Belt Hall, for everybody. Each crew solves its own card and gets ONE number. A right number from every crew opens the door
- Behind every door is a Key Gear, and a fork: the class votes, up to the Gear Gallery or down to the Cog Cellar; then along the Whistle Pipes or across to the Marble Run
- The Great Gear: a pyramid maze. A crew may only step onto a gear whose number is in the times table of a Key Gear the class holds, so the class's choices decide the way down, and the four gold bolts on the way give the restart code
- One of four endings, and certificates for everyone
- A class plays three of the five rooms. The two it did not choose are ready for another day, with a new code and a new ending

THREE TOOLS, THREE CARDS, EVERY CREW NEEDED
- In each room the Wrench, Bolt and Spring crews get three different cards of the same kind, so every crew's number is needed for the door
- With 4 to 6 crews, two crews share a tool and a puzzle
- Crews stay at their own tables: no stations to set up and no moving round the room

TWO LEVELS, ONE ANSWER KEY
- First Gear cards, Grade 3: times tables to 10 x 10, partners that make 100, a magic triangle of six gears, dials whose marks are worth 1, 2, 5 or 10, and halves, thirds, quarters, sixths and eighths of a number
- Second Gear cards, Grade 4: hops past several full turns (multiply, then take off the full turns) with one gear that runs backward, partners that make 1,000, a triangle of nine gears, four-row stacks with trickier dials, fractions such as 3/8 of a number, and Great Gear numbers past the ten-times facts
- Both levels of a card give the SAME number, so mixed classes and split grades play side by side and you check everyone with one key

SEVEN KINDS OF PUZZLE
- 4 kinds of math pyramid puzzle: Cog Stack (the warm-up: add the two below), Gauge Stack (read the dials, then add and subtract up and down the stack), Marble Run (a pyramid that pours down: at every gate a fraction of the marbles rolls left and the rest roll right) and the Great Gear (a pyramid maze of times tables)
- 3 more kinds: Belt Pairs (belt up the wheels that make 100 or 1,000 and find the wheel that lost its partner), Tooth Hop (hop round a gear with numbered teeth: times tables you can draw) and Gear Racks (a magic triangle: every side adds up to the same number)
- 1 more kind, the Sorting Rings, is in the free bonus folder
- The rooms run from the easiest kind to the hardest, as two test crews ranked them
- Every card sits one step below the top of its grade, so a crew can finish it together

SKILLS PRACTICED
Multiplication and division facts, multiples, adding and subtracting within 100 and 1,000, a missing addend, reading a scale, a fraction of a set, and dividing with a remainder on the Grade 4 cards. A skills page lists the US Common Core codes for Grade 3 and Grade 4 (a planning guide; not endorsed by the standards' authors).

WHAT YOU GET (instant download, 4 PDF files)
- Full kit, US Letter (69 pages)
- Full kit, A4 (69 pages)
- Projector slides, 16:9 (23 slides with buttons to tap: the story, every room, both forks, the Key Gears and the four endings)
- Tablet edition with tap-to-jump hint and answer buttons (classroom play needs the printed cards)
- Free bonus folder (QR code inside): Jam Session (4 harder cards for fast crews, with answers and hints) and ink-saver editions of every page

INSIDE THE KIT
- For the teacher: what to print and how many, which page for which crew, how to set up, a 60-minute and a 75-minute plan, a read-aloud script for every room, fork and ending that also works without a projector, one page with every number you need during play, skills, a 6-page answer key with solved pictures, 3-step hints for every card (where to start, the method, the worked answer)
- For the class: mission page, a workshop map for the board, a Crew Log with the warm-up and three hint tokens, crew plates and job cards (Reader, Writer, Checker, Runner), six full-color door signs, five Key Gear cards
- The puzzles: 30 room cards (five rooms, three crews, two levels) and 2 Great Gear cards
- Two-up certificates with type-in names

YOU WILL NEED
Printer (color looks best; ink-saver pages are in the bonus folder), paper, scissors, tape, pencils, scrap paper, a clock. 30 to 45 minutes to print and set up the first time. Every crew writes on its own cards: with six crews that is 57 sheets, or 45 if you choose the rooms yourself.

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, in two rounds, and their notes were acted on.
- No holiday theme: it suits test-prep review, end of year, back to school, a math club or a party.
- Not suitable for children under 3 (small cut-out parts).
- Love math pyramids? Creouts Publishing also publishes math pyramid puzzle books in paperback (search "Creouts Publishing" on Amazon).

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 files cannot be returned.