Candyland Classroom Details!

2020 Update: Here is a more recent post about how I put my Candyland Classroom Transformation together in 2020.

If you saw my post about my Candyland Classroom Transformation I put together after the first week of school, you saw my decorations and my inspiration. This post is about the content that I used within the classroom transformation.

This classroom transformation was unique for me because it reviewed middle school classroom procedures rather than Latin content. Teaching the first week of school is an art I am eternally perfecting, and this past year I attempted to teach no Latin content and all procedural content. I aimed to expose my students to every classroom activity we would see throughout the year, and then teach and model what I expected from them during those classroom activities.

For example, I need students to know which activities allow loud and excited engagement, and which activities require patience and quiet students. As I began compiling the aesthetics for a Candyland classroom transformation, I simultaneously started a list of challenges for my students that reflected the classroom procedures that had been taught that first week of school.

How my life-size Candyland classroom game worked: I gave these instructions to my students.

• Read the top challenge card

• Complete the challenge

• Show your completed challenge to the teacher

• Once approved, your team may spin the wheel

• Move your gummy bear piece to the color that you spun

• Pick up next top challenge card

What Were the Challenges Themselves?

Each challenge sheet used a Candyland font I found online and challenge instructions on the back.

I included a variety of challenges in the challenge draw card pile. The goal was to give the students ownership of our classroom procedures.

• List these activities in order that students should be quietest to loudest

• Take this practice quiz as a group but silently

• Grade this quiz (since we had spent time talking about how their assignments were graded)

• Write down English derivatives for these Latin words we introduced/review

• Explain Civitates as if you were describing the rules to a Kindergartener (Civitates is a classroom game we play with unique rules we had gone over)

Here are some more examples of my challenges:

Task cards for my candyland classroom transformation are available for purchase here.

Classroom transformations are engaging at every level; I can envision a Candyland review as a first week of school lesson plan for elementary, middle, and high school levels.