[Related Course: Create a Custom Block Theme #1] Your Block Theme’s theme.json - Lesson Plan

[wparasae]

IMPORTANT:

** This lesson plan belongs to part of a greater course, Create a Custom Block Theme #1 ** Please reach out to @arasae (Sarah Snow) in the #training team Slack if you would like to help with this lesson plan.

Topic Description

This aims to break down the complexities of theme.json for beginning developers; we need to both begin using standard terminology (Supports, Presets, etc.) but also present this information in a way that is extremely clear for intermediate users.

Examples of clarification: (These need to be detailed out more, but you get the idea): First, you have to bring the paint to make your custom theme colorful (or not!) You add color palettes are in settings.

Then, you have to decide what parts of your theme should be what colors, like painting a wall one color and a door another. Assigning those colors to things is in styles.

You also may want to turn settings off and on, such as deciding how a room's lighting might look. Supports is kind of a subsection of settings that enables/disables block settings.

If you want people to only be able to use certain colors, you will need to create the options. Think of it like providing a color palette for a client in a room. Presets is where you populate options for things like color options and similarly related ones.

This should give a high-level overview of all the things that can be done with theme.json, but that we will focus this course on two things: colors and fonts. We will provide resources at the end of the course for additional information surrounding theme.json (we can also link people to resources if they want to do a deep dive into theme.json).

Objectives

After completing this lesson, participants will be able to:

• Create a theme.json file in the text editor
• List three key elements the theme.json file controls

Guidelines

Review the [team guidelines] (https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/guidelines/)

Development Checklist:

• [ ] Review any related material on Learn
• [x] Description and Objectives finalized
• [ ] Gather links to Support, other learn.wordpress.org existing resources, and Developer Docs
• [ ] Create an outline of the example lesson walk-through
• [ ] Draft lesson plan
• [ ] Copy edit
• [ ] Style guide review
• [ ] Instructional Review
• [ ] Final review
• [ ] Publish
• [ ] Announce to the Training team
• [ ] Announce to lesson plan creator
• [ ] Announce to marketing
• [ ] Gather feedback from lesson plan users about the quality

Repo Structure and Lesson Plan Template

Please remove all blockquote comments such as this before publishing.

Description

A short paragraph explaining what is covered in the lesson plan. This should be text that can be copied and used in a meetup or workshop description.

Target Audience

Who is this lesson intended for? What interests/skills would they bring? Put an "x" in the brackets for all that apply.

• [x] Users / Content Writers
• [x] Designers
• [x] Beginner-Level Developers
• [ ] Developers
• [ ] Speakers
• [ ] Organizers
• [ ] Kids

Experience Level

How much experience would a participant need to get the most from this lesson? Put an "x" in the brackets for all that apply.

• [ ] Beginner
• [x] Intermediate
• [ ] Advanced

Type of Instruction

Which strategies will be used for this lesson plan? Put an "x" in the brackets for all that apply.

• [x] Text-and-Image-Based, Remote-First Course
• [ ] Exercises
• [ ] Slides
• [ ] Video Tutorial

Time Estimate (Duration)

How long will it take to present this lesson? Put an "x" in the brackets for the one that applies.

• [ ] 1-5 Minutes
• [ ] 5-10 Minutes
• [ ] 15+ Minutes
• [ ] 1 hour or less

Prerequisite Skills

Participants will get the most from this lesson if they have familiarity with: These are important to include in case someone wants to use this lesson plan in-person as a stand-alone lesson.

• Skill 1
• Skill 2

For example:

• Experience with HTML and CSS
• Completed the Basic WordPress Concepts lesson

Readiness Questions

These are important to include in case someone wants to use this lesson plan in-person as a stand-alone lesson.

• Question 1
• Question 2

A list of questions for participants to see if they have the background and skills necessary to learn and understand the lesson.

For example:

• Do you want to makes changes to your theme yourself?
• Do you know how to write CSS?

Slides

If someone wanted to run this lesson as a stand-alone Online Live Workshop or at an in-person WordCamp, you could create slides for this here; if you run a Live Online Workshop on one of these topics or find someone else has, related slides would be welcome!

Change the /repo-name/ in the link to match the URL name of this repo.

• Slides (files included in this repo)

Materials Needed

• Item 1
• Item 2

A list of files, resources, equipment, or other materials the presenter will need for the lesson.

For example:

• A local install of WordPress
• The files for the TwentySixteen theme

Notes for the Presenter

/Include any tips needed to present this topic for a Live Online Workshop or in an in-person classroom setting.

• Note 1
• Note 2

A list of any handy tips or other information for the presenter.

For example:

• Participants may need to download the TwentySixteen theme before beginning
• What to do if there’s no projector or internet available
• What to do if a participant doesn’t have the necessary set up
• How to handle different opinions about the topic

Lesson Outline

• First do this
• Then move on to this
• Finish with this

The plan for the lesson. Outline form works well.

For example:

• Talk about what a theme is
• Demonstrate how to install and activate a theme
• Practice exercises to have participants find and install a theme on their own site

Exercises

What someone will DO with what they learn in each lesson; most lessons have at least one related exercise.

Exercise name

Short description of what the exercise does and what skills or knowledge it reinforces.

• Short point or step of the exercise
• And another one

These are short or specific activities that help participants practice certain components of the lesson. They should not be fully scripted exercises, but rather something that participants could do on their own. For example, you can create an exercise based on one step of the Example Lesson.

Assessment

These assessments will be autograded on Learn.WordPress.org. There should be one assessment item (or more) for each objective listed above. Each assessment item should support an objective; there should be none that don't.

Write out the question.

1. Option
2. Option
3. Option
4. Option

Answer: 3. Correct answer

A few questions to ask participants to evaluate their retention of the material presented. They should be a measure of whether the objectives were reached. Consider having a question for each objective.

Additional Resources

• Resource 1
• Resource 2

An optional section which can contain a list of resources that the presenter can use to get more information on the topic.

For example:

• Link to information on the Codex
• Theme Review Team's Handbook

Example Lesson [Written for a text-and-image based, multimedia course rather than for a live classroom setting]

An example of how the lesson plan can be implemented. Written in script form as one possible way an presenter might use this lesson plan at an event, with screenshots and instructions if necessary.

Section Heading for Example Lesson

You will likely need to break the Example Lesson down into multiple sections.

Lesson Wrap Up

Follow with the Exercises and Assessment outlined above.