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Title screen of The Mothers' Feast, a Mother's Day Latin escape room

Mother's Day · Latin I

The Mothers' Feast

A Mother's Day Latin escape room for Latin I

Works with: Cambridge Latin Course, Book 1, Stages 1–12

It is 1 March, the Matronalia, the Roman festival of mothers. In the house of Caecilius in Pompeii, Metella is preparing a feast and Quintus has a gift for her. Solve seven puzzles to join the celebration.

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 Book 1 (Stages 1–12)
  • Grammar: present, imperfect and perfect of laudat and parat
  • Macrons never needed
  • Takes about one lesson
Illustration from the picture-count lock of The Mothers' Feast

For teachers

Each of the seven locks practises something different:

  1. Crossword — the family, the house and the feast, in Latin from Book 1.
  2. Anagrams — unscramble seven things done at the festival.
  3. Cipher — decode a message in Latin, then answer the riddle it asks.
  4. Matching — two verbs, laudat ("praises") and parat ("prepares"), in the present, imperfect and perfect.
  5. Picture Count — reassemble the dining room, 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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