Candy Land: A theme for a K-5 Accelerated Reading Program

Welcome to the land where reading is “sweet”!Our school uses Accelerated Reader (Renaissance Learning) as a motivational program for our students. Now, I know many educators have mixed feelings on how this program works. Should we be quizzing students on EVERY book they read? Does rewarding them for reading a story, defeat the purpose of gaining the love of reading? The list goes on…When I started at my school three years ago, the Literacy Specialist had already implemented this program. SO when I was hired to take her role, I just ran with it and hoped for the best! This post isn’t to argue if it is good or not; it is just what works for our school.I simply wanted to share how we use it and how much the children love it!

Each year, I create a bulletin board in the main lobby to reflect our theme for the year. This year I have chosen….Candy Land! This board will house the “gingerbread” playing pieces. Each gingerbread will represent a classroom (1st-5th). I have given the classrooms the option to decorate their own class gingerbread, to bring teamwork into it right from the start!

At the end of each month, I tally how many points their class has received based on the total points for the number of quizzes passed (this is a viewing option on the AR program). They are working as a team (classroom) to read books and pass quizzes and competing against ONLY their own grade level. 

Ex. 1st grade competes with the other 1st grade classrooms etc. If a child does not pass a quiz, it is NOT counted against their class. I generate the points to only tally the quizzes passed. 

Here is a closer look…

As I move their gingerbread along the board, I celebrate on the morning announcements which class is in the lead. When they reach King Candy, I will personally treat them to a reward. The reward is decided between the classroom teacher and myself. So really it could be anything.. i.e. extra recess, pajama party, etc.

Sometimes classrooms will not make it to 500+ points. I alter the goal based on the year prior, so you would do what is best for your school!

Think of the points that could be reached by the highest-grade level you have. The higher grades have books that are worth more points, however, their books also take longer to read! So, keep that in mind when making your end goal!

This process continues on until the end of the year! Come June, I put on a “celebration of reading” for all students K-5. This year, it will be a life size candy land game. All of the classrooms will receive a trophy for all their hard work, and the classrooms in the lead will receive a “sweet treat” of books! The books are collected throughout the year by faculty and staff, PTO, scholastic bonus points, etc.

I also wanted to include information about the resources used to create this bulletin board!

The words were created using fonts: KG LET HER GO and KG A LITTLE BIT OF SWAG. Both fonts can be found on Teachers Pay Teachers.

The border was purchased from Amazon (Eureka brand), the lollipops were hand made using glitter (of course), foam, wooden dowels and cellophane bags for baking. All characters were printed and blown up from google and candy land squares were Astrobright (obviously!).

Happy Reading!