Classroom transformations are everywhere in education right now, and rightfully so. They are incredibly fun and get students super engaged right from the moment they walk into your classroom!
So when Romeo and Juliet’s wedding was approaching in our reading of the play, I figured, why not do a mini classroom transformation to celebrate their wedding day? And I have to tell you, it was awesome and easy! I spent a total of about 15-20 minutes to get everything together, and my kids absolutely loved it. Their reactions when they walked into the room were priceless 🙂
Here are some pictures of what I did for our Romeo and Juliet Classroom Transformation
What was fabulous about this mini classroom transformation was that I told the kids about it in advance, so they were able to bring in a lot of the props! Here’s what students brought in:
- Flower bouquet
- Flower petals
- Candles
- Wedding Ring
- Veil for Juliet to wear
- The Bible was in our classroom (I teach at a Catholic school)
- Haiku Hearts (these were a class activity the week prior, so I just hung them up!)
The only two items I had to buy were the tulle and the wisteria garland. I bought both off of Amazon for a pretty good price, and I’ll just use both items again next year!
I wanted to add just a little bit of a personal touch, so I also created the Wedding Programs and placed one on each student’s desks. You can grab these for free by completing the form below – I’ll send it right to your inbox!
That’s it! It was an easy, fun, and quick classroom transformation that got the kids excited and kept them engaged!
One thing to note about how I actually utilized the transformation for teaching the content …
Because the play doesn’t really have the wedding actually happen, we just read all of Act II, scene vi at the front of the classroom with Friar Lawrence, Romeo, and Juliet standing at the altar as though they were getting married.
Then, after reenacting this scene, we watched the same wedding scene from the Leonardo DiCaprio film as well as the Zeffirelli version. We talked about what we liked and didn’t like from each version, and which one we thought was the best and why!
If you’re looking for more Romeo and Juliet ideas, we have this great blog post all about how I introduce the play using some intriguing questions … click here to head over there 🙂
8 Comments
I’m wanting to do this activity, wedding and all, with my 9th graders in a few weeks. Since scene 6 is relatively short, are there any other activities you would suggest that are student led to wrap up this act? We’re on a block schedule so I am trying to figure out how to fill my time but still do the wedding!
Hey Amanda!
I would suggest moving into either the next scene, OR doing some sort of discussion-based, critical thinking questions afterward (I would allow the wedding to take place first because they’ll just be so excited). You may want to do a Socratic Seminar, a silent debate, a panel discussion. Something that’s super directed and engaging since they’ll be pretty darn amped up after doing the wedding. Hope this helps!
Caitlin
Hey! I’ve used many of your R&J lesson ideas in the past – really wanting to do the room transformation and curious about the haiku hearts. What was the prompt here? Thanks!
This will be so much fun! For the Haiku, I just asked them to write about the topic of love.
Awesome! Thank you so much for the cute ideas.
Of course!