The Candy Critic

Need an excuse to bring candy into the classroom?  Need a way to get through a bag of Halloween candy–even the icky stuff?  Why not become a candy critic?!

For our students, examining a piece of candy is a fun way to work on attributes.  For a therapist, it’s a way to practice mindfulness!  Simply bring in a bag of fun sized treats and get to work.  Students will unwrap the candy and make notes on color, shape, smell and feel (ie. smooth, soft, hard, sticky) before they even put it in their mouth, so you may want to have napkins or plates on the table.  Once they’ve had a sample, they can record the taste and top it all off with a mini-review.

The mini-review might be a sentence or two critique, a sentence that “sells” the candy or simply a 1-5 star rating depending on the child’s level.  Expand your therapy by having students give each other “clues” from their notes and seeing if the partner can guess what candy is being described.  Or make a graph of favorite candies to address quantity concepts.  For example, most of the class likes Hershey’s, but only a few like 3 Musketeers.

At my local grocery, there are variety packs of fun size candies for the big night.  I based my first two grids on one variety pack plus an additional single candy bag.  The third grid is blank so you can either choose your own variety or have children bring in an assortment from their treat bag after Halloween.  I would recommend shooting for a wide variety–something sour, a plain chocolate, a varietyof chocolate with fillings.  Be aware of allergies!  Lots of these candies contain nuts, coconut or have been made in a factory that houses them!

For your free treat, click here!

Candy Critic cover for blog

 

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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Joan O'Brien

    Super cute idea —great way to work on describing and compare and contrast with a script- “____and ____ are the same because they are ____. They are different because ____ is _____ and _____ is ______.” It could even be extended into some simple opinion/persuasive writing – “The ____is the best candy you could get on Halloween because ___ it’s ___,___, and ____. It’s not ___ like _____ which is ___ and ____.” Thanks for another great idea Kim – I continue to be excited to read your blog updates 🙂 Happy almost Halloween!

    1. admin

      Joan, a million thanks for adding these expansion activities! Kim

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The views expressed in this blog are my own and are intended to inspire other speech-language pathologists in their own practice. If you are a parent, teacher or other educator, these ideas are not intended to take the place of treatment by a certified clinician. Read full disclaimer here.