Camping Room Transformation {Free Literacy Centers}

Hey friends! Every year, I spend the last few weeks doing a camp out. Since I didn't have a class of my own this year, I did the same theme with my tutoring students. They LOVED it! It was so easy and cheap to transform our library into a CAMP OUT! The students really enjoyed this easy camping themed room transformation!

We read some amazing stories! During guided reading groups, the kids read Froggy Goes to Camp, Flat Stanley Goes to Camp, Just Me and Dad, Curious George Goes to Camp, Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping and The Berenstain Bears Blaze a Trail

Books pictured: Camping Day, Arthur's Camp Out, The Campout Challenge, Pony Scouts The Camping Trip, Danny and the Dinosaur Go to Camp, Just Me and Dad

These little activity mats were a huge hit. I was able to see who really understood what they are reading!

For this activity, I just used the die cut machine to make stars. I wrote sight words on the stars and placed them around the room. Since I had K-2nd grade, I  kept each grade level of words in the same area. The kids had to "write the room" and then use the words in a sentence. The recording sheet is in my free camping center packet. 

 For this part of the room transformation, we just covered the book shelves with butcher paper. After day one, I put up the kids "Happy Campers" cover from Cara's Unit. We used SEVERAL literacy activities from Cara Carroll's  Camping Unit. I  was so busy, I didn't take that many pictures! 

For the tables, I just used picnic table cloths, campfire center pieces and tea lights from the dollar tree. The table cloths and tea lights were originally purchased for my book tasting. I need to share that with you! 

 The jumbo cut out signs came from Oriental Trading. They were only a few dollars, but really gave that "camp site" appearance. 

For literacy centers, we used Cara's unit and this unit. 

Click the picture to get your FREE Literacy Centers

Thank you for stopping by to read about our camping room transformation! 

How To Protect Your Classroom Library

It's that time of year that we start to picture our summer vacation. We might begin to make plans, schedule appointments and even book our vacation time. Summer can come up quickly, so I've made a list of a few things I try to do before summer creeps up on you! I try to tackle one project at a time. 

Inside My Classroom Library 

The first thing I do to prepare for summer is take a long hard look at my classroom library.  I've invested quite a bit and had a mentor that invested quite a bit. I want my library to stay nice for years to come. With these tips, I can proudly say after 11 years, I've barely had to get rid of ANY books. My kids know how I am about my library and they don't play around when it comes to taking care of books!

How To Clean Your Classroom Library

This is something I've always done as I've seen needed, but I don't recall ever pulling all of the books out and cleaning them until I met my new media specialist. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I walked in to the library, and all I could see was books standing open. The fresh lemon scent went through the air and made everything seem so clean! I asked her "What are you doing?", she replied "Cleaning books". She was almost puzzled like duh, what does it look like. So I watched her and quickly adapted this system. We have sure bonded over our love for books and how to teach students how to TREAT the books. 

Before I start to clean my books, I go through and pull out all of the major repairs. I determine if they can be salvaged or if they should be tossed. I use cleaning wipes and packing tape to do most of my repairs. 

The first step: Take you cleaning wipe out of the container and ring it out. This seems like another "duh" moment, but you have to do this step. If you use the cleaning wipe while it is dripping wet, you will ruin your books. I repeat, you will ruin your books! 

After I wipe them down very thoroughly, I let them air out for a good bit. I might only do a few categories a day or before I leave. The next day, I'll put them back in their basket. This way, they have plenty of time to dry before I stack them on top of each other.

Here's a little proof that with a little love, your old and dirty books, can look very good again!

Once I've cleaned my books, I want to make sure they are all in the right baskets, so I reorganize them in order to pack up. I will wrap each stack of books up with large construction paper to pack them up. I've moved a lot due to my husband's service, and this is the way that has worked best for me over the years!  I also check to make sure each book has the right label. You can read more about how I organize my classroom library here. 

I'll be back to share another tip for ending the school year smoothly later in the week! Thank you for following along! 

Spicing Up The End Of The School Year

Hey friends! I wanted to take a minute to chat about our last few weeks! The last two weeks, we've done Cara Carroll's Camping Unit! My kids LOVED this unit. I actually didn't even get to my favorite part--the skunk creativity! I wanted to take this time to review all our writing traits that we've learned this year. 

We made these adorable little camping books! My kids LOVED doing this. It was a win-win because I gave them several prompts and they just had to pick three to include in their books! You can get your free copy here

 I left a few pages blank so that you can use this product to fit your classroom needs better :) 

To spice up our guided math centers-- I whipped up these easy bottle cap math mats. I used different colors for odd and even numbers for spiral review. I have the students draw their math sentences in their journals and write a sentence telling me which numbers are even and odd.

Click HERE for your guided math freebie!

What are some ways you spice up the end of the year??

Swimming into Summer

You may remember in the fall, that I got together with my great friends Tessa (Tales from Outside the Classroom), Nicole (Teaching with Style), and Ashley (Teacher's Treasure Chest) and we gave away some items for free for people who signed up.  Not a giveaway where only a few people got it; every single person received the items!!!!!  We wanted a fun and different way to thank our followers.  Well, we decided to do it again and we recruited some of our best blogger friends!

You can receive ALL of this!

To receive the Swimming into Summer items, all you need to do is follow ALL of our blogs and come back and fill out our form.  That's it!  You can enter now through Sunday, June 9th.  We'll start sending them out on Monday, June 10th.  You can go to each blog, by clicking on each button below.

 

Remember, all you need to do to get all of these is just follow each blog and enter using this form.  Even if you're already out of school, you can use these next year! :)
Hurry up though! The giveaway will only run through Sunday, June  9th. So sign up now and we will begin sending out the products next Monday!

Subscribe to our mailing list

Follow my blog with Bloglovin