geometry – Mathberry Lane

Back‑to‑school season is always full of excitemnt. You have a new schedules, lots of new faces and names to learn, and a whole lot of “Wait… what do they still remember from last year?”

When you teach high school math, the first week is all about getting to know your students, building community, and bringing a little fun back into the classroom.You want students engaged, moving, and reconnecting with math… but you also need a quick read on their foundational skills before diving into new content.

And if we’re being honest, the same old review worksheet just doesn’t set the tone for the kind of classroom we want.

So this year, I created something different. My Back‑to‑School Boot Camp Escape Rooms for Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 turn the first week into a hands‑on, puzzle‑filled mission. Students rotate through eight stations packed with ciphers, decoders, cut‑and‑match puzzles, graph tasks, and skill‑based challenges, all wrapped in a fun storyline that makes review feel like an experience instead of an assignment.

They’re print‑and‑go, fun to run, and full of collaboration and movement. You get an instant snapshot of what your students remember without giving a test, and students get to ease back into math in a way that feels engaging instead of intimidating.

If you’re looking for something memorable, engaging, and actually fun for the first week of math class, the Boot Camp Escape Rooms are ready for you.

Here’s to starting the year with energy, confidence, and a whole lot of student engagement.

Algebra 1 Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Algebra 1 Boot Camp — plotting points, vocabulary, order of operations, distributive property, patterns, fractions, simplifying expressions, one‑step equations.

High School Math Back to School Escape Room Algebra 1

Geometry Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Geometry Boot Camp — angle relationships, tangram puzzles, constructing circles, angle pair relationships, vocaublary, a logic puzzle and more.

Algebra 2 Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Algebra 2 Boot Camp — polynomials, functions, slope, quadratics, exponentials, domain & range, graph classification.

Starting the year with activities that feel meaningful, collaborative, and fun sets the tone for everything that comes next. Whether you choose Algebra 1, Geometry, or Algebra 2 Boot Camp, each escape room gives your students a chance to reconnect with math, work together, and ease into the year with confidence. I hope these help you kick off your first week feeling organized, energized, and excited for what’s ahead. Cheers!

I love a good hands on activity that helps my students remember the math they are learning. A great activity to remember the surface area of a sphere formula is to investigate the surface area of an orange.

Make sure to use oranges instead of clementines as the clementines are not as spherical as oranges. Students trace the outline of an orange onto a piece of paper, keeping their pencil perpendicular to the paper as best they can. Then have students use a compass to copy the same size circle several more times on their paper. Ask students to make a conjecture about how many circles they believe the orange peel will cover once they have peeled the orange.

Once students have their circles and conjecture, it is time to peel the orange. Students peel the orange and then test out their conjectures by covering each circle, one at a time. Students should find that the orange peel is able to cover 4 circles. Then as a class, make the connection between the radius of a circle and the radius of a sphere, like an orange. Ask students to write a formula for the surface area of their orange.

If you would like to grab a free copy of my Surface Area Investigation Activity, here is the link:

Alternate Ways to Facilitate this Activity:

Each student completes the activity on their own(an orange for each student)
Students work in groups of 3 or 4 students (7-10 oranges)
Teacher has student volunteers go to the front of the room to model the activity for the class (1 orange)

Tag: geometry

Back to School Math Escape Rooms – Boot Camp

Algebra 1 Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Geometry Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Algebra 2 Boot Camp Math Escape Room

Surface Area of Spheres Investigation with Oranges