New Noggin Builders escape room aimed at kids
If creative problem solving and critical thinking are keys to the future success of our children and to the creation of a better world, then kids experiencing Noggin Builders Kid Escape Room are getting an early start toward achieving that goal.
Just ask Julie Stevens of Buffalo Grove, mother of Emeric.
"I liked watching him be so engaged in something that required really thinking," said Stevens.
Noggin Builders Kid Escape Room, the only escape room in the Chicago area designed exclusively for children, opened in November in Northbrook Court.
Kids form teams of eight to 10 players tasked with discovering clues and solving fun, brain-teasing puzzles and challenges in a safe environment. They get to use cool science concepts along the way in order to solve the game.
"In chapter one of the story, players, who all have to be accompanied by an adult, must find and reverse the effects of a formula painstakingly, yet successfully, created by absent-minded Professor Quarkenstein," said Amy Torf, founder of Noggin Builders Kid Escape Room and two Noggin Builders academic centers, all in Northbrook.
"The escape room not only is ideal for 5 to 10-year-olds, but children of all ages."
The room and story is a professor's lab with a microscope and his notes out. Kids are dressed in lab coats and work to solve puzzles, one of which is a set of scales that uses a UV light, while another has a set of lights on the top of an acrylic box. Inside each case are a lot of interesting things to see. The "fizzy" puzzle is the kids' favorite.
Players earn collectible pins for successfully completing the game, solving the game, for speed and other accomplishments.
The kids themselves are the best judges:
Grayson Wessel, 7, of Glencoe said, "I liked opening the safe at the end and matching the paper bottom to the top."
Emeric Stevens, 6, said, "I liked solving all the puzzles." Would he return for chapter two? "Yes. Maybe the lab is evil."
And Rebecca Shaw, 9, said, "I experienced new things with a lot of other people. We were all working together."
Reservations are required to guarantee participation. All children must be accompanied by an adult. The Kid Escape Room also is available for private groups and parties.
Noggin Builders academic centers have inspired hundreds of children, many of whom already have experienced the escape room, to develop these skills through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). It is the path Torf follows to help her students arrive as better, more skillful adults.
She currently is celebrating her sixth year offering classes, camps and parties in Northbrook, 3000 Dundee Road, #201, and in Northbrook Court, which houses its Noggin Builders Kid Escape Room.
Noggin Builders Kid Escape Room, inside Northbrook Court behind Northbrook Play on the second level between the AMC Theater and the glass elevator, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sundays.
Reservations are being accepted for the holiday school break for after 2 p.m. on Dec. 30, 31, and Jan. 2, 3.
For information, visit www.nogginbuilderskidescaperoom.com or call (847) 770-0540.
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