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Title screen of Horatius at the Bridge, a Presidents' Day Latin escape room

Presidents' Day · Latin III

Horatius at the Bridge

A Presidents' Day Latin escape room for Latin III

Works with: Cambridge Latin Course, Book 3, Stages 21–34

The Etruscan army is marching on Rome, and the only way in is a wooden bridge over the Tiber. Horatius and two companions stand at the far end while the Romans hack the bridge down behind them. Solve seven puzzles to see whether he holds it.

Play the free taster (2 of 7 locks)Members: full room

The taster runs in the browser, with nothing to install. Members share a private class link that opens all seven locks. Sound adds to the atmosphere.

What's inside

  • 7 self-grading locks, all in Latin
  • Vocabulary from Cambridge Latin Course Books 1–3 (to Stage 34)
  • Grammar: the passive of frangō and dēfendō
  • Macrons never needed
  • Takes about one lesson
Illustration from the picture-count lock of Horatius at the Bridge

For teachers

Each of the seven locks practises something different:

  1. Crossword — war, the river and courage, in Latin from Book 3.
  2. Anagrams — unscramble seven words from the fight on the bridge.
  3. Cipher — decode a message in Latin, then answer the riddle it asks.
  4. Matching — two verbs, frangō ("break") and dēfendō ("defend"), in the passive: present, imperfect and perfect.
  5. Picture Count — reassemble the bridge and the river, then count what you see.
  6. Odd One Out — find the word that doesn't belong in each row to build the story, then answer questions about it.
  7. Final Rebus — one clue from every lock. Their first letters spell the final word.

Most classes take about 50 minutes. Students can work alone, in pairs or in small teams on any device with a browser, or you can project the room and solve it together as a class. Every answer checks itself, so you are free to circulate, and progress is saved in the browser, so a room can be split across two lessons.

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