Feb 14, 2017

How These Teachers Transform Classrooms Will Blow You Away

Wade and Hope King are teachers at the world famous Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. Hope is well-known in the teaching community. She cofounded the K-3 educator conference known as Get Your Teach On with Deanna Jump, who became famous for being the first self-made millionaire selling lesson plans through TeachersPayTeachers.com! Hope was also awarded the Debra Peebles Golden Deeds Excellence in Teaching Award.

Her partner in crime, Wade, has served as a delegate for the United Nations for Sustainable Development, and was recognized as a Teacher of the Year. The power-teacher couple has been married for 6 years, teaching together for ten years, and four of them have been at RCA.

super mario challenge Hope & Wade King

"Set the stage to engage!"

That's what this teacher couple takes pride in doing. So when they recently found out some of their students had a passion for the original Power Ranger series from the 90's, they decided to transform one of their rooms into a Power Ranger world. With Wade as the director of curriculum and instruction, and Hope being a "classroom transformation guru", the teacher duo created a highly-engaging lesson, in which students completed challenges to unlock each ranger station to eventually release the green ranger challenge. They learned about drones, current events, analyzing non-fiction texts, and supporting human rights. The results are pretty awesome!

Impressive, huh? I know what you're thinking, "I wish my school had a budget for something like that!" But guess what... Wade and Hope both funded AND did all the decorating, themselves! According to Wade, the school didn't spend a dime. They found bargains with a prom company and ordered the costumes online around Halloween sales. Plus, they have been doing these type of lessons for years. So they keep materials from past lessons and reuse decorations.

Wade and Hope King RCA pirates lesson

"These types of lessons are doable in public schools, too," Wade told Bored Teachers. "A lot of people make the excuse that they can't do it because they don't work at RCA. But we did these all the time at other schools, prior to teaching at RCA."

As for the "classroom transformation", Wade told us he spent a lot of time planning it, but only a day after school painting, and one night putting it all together. And to top off the production, he was able to convince the original green ranger from the TV show, Jason David Frank, to make a surprise appearance. Needless to say, the kids were very happy! And it looks like Wade was, too...

Check out the epic Power Ranger lesson in the video below:

And it doesn't stop there. Hope and Wade like to do these kinds of "classroom transformations" all the time for their students! They also just finished a Jurassic Park lesson about biomes, ecosystems, adaptations, and living organisms, Super Mario to review science and social studies, NASCAR to teach forces and motion, and a Winter Wonderland lesson on climate change. They are planning their next transformation as a Marvel Captain America Civil War lesson!

Wade and Hope King Mario winter wonderland

"We as human beings can remember experiences in our lives. Positive and negative ones," Wade told Bored Teachers. "It's our job as educators to provide them with positive experiences that they can connect content to. I know my students will always remember Human rights of refugees, debates over drones, the importance of coding, and all the reading strategies they use before, during, and after this lesson."

Check out Wade and Hope on IG at @elementaryshenanigans & @_wadeking!