Candy Makers Shark Tank Project Turns Reading Into Real-World Learning

Both teachers and parents alike often understand how challenging it can be to get their students not only engaged, but excited to read informational text. Adventure Academy Teacher Melissa Bell found herself tackling this exact problem when she set out to plan a novel study for her fifth-grade CORE Reading class. 

Inspired by the novel The Candy Makers, Melissa designed a Shark Tank-style candy competition that transformed reading, research, and presentation skills into an experience students couldn't wait to participate in. She took a fiction novel and wove very nonfiction learning and curriculum requirements into it, bringing the story to life in a whole new way.
 

"Once I thought about a candy competition, I built the project from there," Melissa explained.
 

The Candy Makers is a story about four children competing to create the best candy. Like the children in the story, Melissa challenged her students to develop candy products of their own. As part of their work, they researched ingredients, tested recipes, created advertisements, and eventually pitched their ideas to a panel of ADVA CORE teachers acting as Shark Tank investors.
 

To help with the process, Melissa also assigned weekly informational readings about marketing, product development, and how candy companies design and sell products. Rather than treating nonfiction reading as a separate assignment and something to dread, students immediately saw how the information could help them improve and refine their products.
 

For fifth graders Abby, Lilly, and Marsha, the project quickly became much more than a book study. Hoping to make something memorable and cute, Abby invented the "Shubooberry," a strawberry-shaped Rice Krispie treat covered in chocolate and topped with dried strawberries. Simply adding chocolate didn’t feel like it would be enough to make her product stand out for the judges, so she used molds to shape the candy into a giant strawberry. 
 

Marsha went a different direction, turning fruits and ingredients from her family’s garden into gummy-style candies. “I'm not really a candy person,” Marsha said. “My mom, let's say she's more of a healthy person, and like any child, I was very into sweets, but I didn’t have a lot of them. I couldn't eat all the candies because, of course, they may contain horrible ingredients.”
 

Inspired by her own experience, Marsha set out to create something healthier that she would have been able to eat freely. She also wanted to avoid gelatin as a traditional thickening ingredient since it comes from animals, choosing instead to use agar agar powder, which is made from red seaweed.

Lilly designed homemade marshmallows filled with chocolate, inspired by a common frustration she noticed while eating s'mores. “When you have a s'more, the chocolate is so hard to break—it's like a rock when you eat it,” Lilly explained. “It breaks the graham cracker.”

She also disliked how messy making a microwave s'more could be and wanted to create something that didn't require roasting a marshmallow over an open flame. “That's the thing. You don't have to heat it up,” Lilly said. “The chocolate is soft inside, so it melts when you bite it.” 

Creating that effect took plenty of trial and error. “I made a homemade marshmallow. Then I took chocolate—it took a lot of experimenting and a lot of prototypes—but eventually I used a syringe and filled it with melted chocolate and oil. I just put it inside the marshmallow.”

What started as a reading assignment became an opportunity to build confidence, solve problems, and bring big ideas to life.
 

For many students, the project became more than just creating candy. They also had to think like entrepreneurs, calculating costs, researching ingredients, creating marketing materials, and preparing presentations that would convince investors to support their products.
 

To make the experience feel authentic, Melissa invited seven other ADVA CORE teachers to serve as "sharks." Each teacher had a unique investor profile and a limited amount of money to invest, creating a realistic and competitive environment.
 

Presenting to unfamiliar teachers was both nerve-racking and rewarding. "It felt more like a real Shark Tank because you don't know the judges personally," Abby said.
 

Lilly found that repeated practice in the weeks leading up to the competition helped build her confidence. "We practiced a lot, so it got easier to speak in front of people," she said.
 

Like any real entrepreneur, students faced challenges as they refined their products. Marsha discovered that working with natural ingredients was more difficult than she expected while Abby spent time experimenting with ingredient ratios and molds to get her candy just right. "The hardest part was figuring out how much coconut oil to use so it wouldn't stick," she shared.

Through the process, students developed much more than candy-making skills. They learned how to research, communicate ideas, answer questions on the spot, and persist through trial and error.

By creating, testing, and pitching their own candy inventions, students discovered how reading, research, and creativity connect in the real world. 

Melissa noticed growth not only in academic skills, but also in student confidence. Students who were initially nervous about presenting found themselves negotiating with investors, answering challenging questions, and confidently sharing their ideas.
 

For Marsha, the project also brought the novel's characters to life. "For me, this project is also for creativity," she said. "It was very fun and interesting. I also think we should try to see how the characters felt when they were doing it, because this book is about four 12-year-old participants who entered a candy challenge and had to make their own candy and see who would win."
 

The excitement surrounding the project became one of its most memorable outcomes. Students eagerly anticipated Shark Tank day, worked through multiple product revisions, and experienced firsthand how reading, research, creativity, and communication connect in the real world.
 

For Abby, Lilly, and Marsha, The Candy Makers Shark Tank project wasn't simply about candy. It was about building confidence, communication skills, and a deeper love of learning. It was about bringing their own ideas to life and proudly sharing them with others.

Lilly, the creator of the Choco-Mallow (front right) smiles warmly with her sister and parents. Lilly’s family helped her with the marshmallow recipe and chocolate to oil ratio.

Lilly’s self-designed poster featuring her candy creation and marketing for her SharkTank project. 

Marsha carefully places her homemade gummy recipe into silicone molds as she looks cheerfully into the camera for her Shark Tank candy project.