CLASS IS LAVA! Gamify ANY Syllabus for ANY Class or Content Area

Look out below! Today we’re kicking off a full year of adventure to prepare for an action-packed class that you’ll never forget. Which team will reign supreme!?

Your goal is to work with your teammates to successfully navigate your way through a series of challenges scattered throughout the classroom, collecting all ten items of furniture as you go! You can explore these locations in any order that you’d like.

Picture this: it's the first day back in your classroom! Do you go the traditional "two truths and a lie" route followed by awkwardly reading the syllabus aloud to a room full of sleepy teens? FORGET THAT -- your students have been cooped up away from their classmates for MONTHS! And there's no time for boring back to school lessons when THE FLOOR IS LAVA!!!

Wake up any tired back to school routine by turning your day one rules, procedures, and consequences housekeeping items into an all-out gamified team-vs.-team race that blends icebreakers, getting to know you activities, and MEANINGFUL face-to-face dialogue that's guaranteed to stand out from the parade of other sign and return forms and the usual back-to-school procedural grind. If you're like me, I want my students talking about my class at the dinner table from *the very first night* -- and this is a game-changing way to start your year off strong!

Students will be divided into five competing teams in an effort to complete 10 different activities before the final bell rings, blending a mix of new school ed tech (Google Forms, Flipgrid, Remind, and Padlet) with old school pedagogies like collaborative learning and honest-to-goodness HUMAN INTERACTION -- all of which are so critically important, especially in those first days of school. And along the way, they'll likewise be...

• Signing up to receive regular text message alerts from your class

• Learning the ropes of your classroom with self-directed autonomy

• Completing course intro surveys to help you know who's who

• Recording short video introductions to give you a sense of their tech savvy

• Chatting with you casually without interrupting other teams' progress

• Posting selfies and bite-sized bios to help you put a face to a name

• Submitting goals and short writing samples to gauge the work that lies ahead

Stand out from the pack with this plug-and-play gamification for any course or content area. Get your students working, thinking, laughing, and ENGAGING from the very moment that class begins until long after the final bell has sounded for the day's instruction (no joke -- students will ask "for just one more minute" -- like they were somehow playing your class as if it were one giant video game. And just like that, you've got them excited to come back to see what you have in store for tomorrow.

READY TO USE AS IS with an exciting theme inspired by the hit television show!

***(PLUS additional activity modification instructions and an at-home scoreboard for educators who might be teaching this year's classes using a distance learning or hybrid instruction model)!***

They say that your favorite class is the one that you like the most, and that your best class is the one where you learn the most. This resource helps you start the year off on the road to both of those destinations -- and the immediate enthusiasm it inspires will plant powerful seeds to help you reap dividends in student engagement for weeks to come thereafter!

Thanks for checking out my TPT store. I hope you have an amazing school year!

- John

PS: Like this resource? I think you’ll LOVE the back to school #QRBreakIn lineup. Like an escape room in REVERSE!