End of Year Classroom Transformations

Long time, no blog friends!  I promise I haven't forgotten about you!  I've been a little pre-occupied with this guy...

Yep...I'm getting married!!  Is it September yet?!?!

Anywho...I wanted to share with you a couple room transformations that I have done the past couple years and never blogged about! 🙈🙈🙈

Throughout the post, you may find Amazon Affiliate links, which means Amazon tosses a few nickels my way if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that help keep my corner of cyber-space running!

My first end of year room transformation was two years ago and we had Beach Day! I transformed our room to The Crystal Coast complete with beach sound effects on YouTube, a "sandy" beach, and a perfectly blue ocean!  Most of the materials I used for this room transformation came from Dollar Tree and Party City - so I didn't break the bank!

Sandy Beach Canvas was from Amazon

Blue Tablecloth from Party City made our ocean

Inflatables all came from Dollar Tree.

This year, I already had the Adirondack chairs as part of my flexible seating classroom - the fit Beach Day perfectly! The kids had a blast complete Beach Day centers all the while lounging around on the beach.

I collected lots of summer and beach themed books from Scholastic so they had plenty to read when they finished an activity.  Kids love to read books that are on the teacher shelf or that they never get to read! They are like gold!

Some of the centers had students sorting cards - like Fact vs. Opinion - so I got these sand shovels from Dollar Tree so students could sort them in their group.

Reading and working on arrays!

I covered our cubbies with this scene setter from Amazon! Binder clips on top and then it covered all our stuff and brought the beach to another corner of our classroom!!

It wouldn't be complete without a special snack! We had fruit cups, water bottles, and goldfish! Again, all of the cups/plates came from Dollar Tree! Make a stop before all their beach stuff gets gone!

Working on sentences by the seashore - literally! hehe

Here's a preview of the activities my kiddos were working on!

Last year, I went a totally different direction and we went CAMPING!!  The year before many of the first graders had had a beach day in 1st grade - so I had to come up with something different!  

We "CAMP" wait for Summer!  This blog post was done last year leading up to Camp Day - lots of ideas and extra resources posted there including nature sound effects on YouTube, Snack Mix, and Camping Books!

We pitched a tent on what had been my beach last year! And made a fire using sticks, rocks and tissue paper! But I didn't dare get close to it and breathe wrong - or it would have collapsed! I'm not an outdoorsy person so...not the best fire builder!

This was the reading tent! We did rotations around the classroom and each group had a round where they got to read some of the camping themed books I had found - they LOVED it! I brought a huge bear from home to stick in the tent as well as a sleeping bag to lay in the floor and make it comfy.

Each center activity had a directions card (pictured upside down in the picture above) - students could read the directions to complete the activity and then, scan the QR code to be able to access the answers to the activity! Win-Win for me! Less papers to check!

The Camp Read-A-Lot Reading tent in action!

But it wasn't all just fun...they did work too!  After they completed each activity, they earned a camp badge - like a Brag Tag! You could also print these on full sheet label papers and make them into camp badge stickers!

Do you do any fun activities or room transformations for the end of the year?!?

SaveSave

End of Year Behavior - It's all about the MINDSET!!

Happy Sunday friends!
I'm sure you're not quite ready to hit the ground running tomorrow to start a new week - but that just means we are one day closer to summer - so there's a good way to look at it!
I wanted to pop in and share an idea with you and a new freebie that's in my TPT store to help you with student behavior as we wind down the school year.

Throughout the post, you may find Amazon Affiliate links, which means Amazon tosses a few nickels my way if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that help keep my corner of cyber-space running! For the past few weeks I have been using the phrase "show me how almost 3rd graders would..." when I am wanting my students to show me the right way to do something.  I usually try to follow that up with what I am expecting to see (quietly and quickly walking, looking forward, etc).  Most times this quick and easy phrase does the trick and they show me exactly how to walk in line, go back to their seats, whatever it is.
It's all about a mindset shift for them.  At this point in the year, they are eagerly anticipating summer and knowing that they are going to get to move up to the next grade level when they return to school. But with that comes a greater responsibility to act a certain way - that's what I tell them at least!  So when I saw "show me how almost 3rd graders would..." their mind shifts to acting like an older student would act.
But in the last 2-3 weeks of school, I add a visual reminder for them as well!  I am going to give each of my students a lanyard with a "3rd Grader in Training" name tag attached.  They will wear these each day and when they are not acting like a 3rd grader, they may lose their badge.  In addition to it saying "3rd Grader in Training", it also says "How am I doing?"  When other teachers on the hall see my students wearing these and see them acting responsibly, they can easily compliment their behavior and encourage them to keep up exactly what they are doing.  This verbal praise from another teacher (or better yet - the principal!!) is exactly what they need to hear.

Now, before I give my students these badges - before I even SHOW them to them - I have them sitting in a brown paper bag with a note on them.  I'll leave them there for a few days, if not a whole week before they find out whats in the bag.  I will refer to this bag throughout the week - "Oh, you know almost 3rd graders are the only ones that get to find out what's in the bag - if we can act like we are 3rd graders, then we'll find out whats in the bag."  Play it up really big - because to them - it could be a bag full of candy!

When I introduce them to my students - we most definitely will talk about what we should and should not do with our lanyards - and how they could lose their lanyard.  Putting them in their mouths is definitely NOT a 3rd grade behavior - so they would lose their badge.  Swinging them around in the air like a lasso is MOST definitely not a 3rd grade behavior, so they could lose their badge, and so on and so forth.
Now, at the end of the day, all of my students will return their lanyards to the hook where we are keeping them in the classroom.  And at the end of the year, I will bag them all up to keep for next year!  I found my lanyards over at Amazon and they seem to be good quality!  Hopefully they will stand up to my 2nds!


You can grab the freebie tags for Kinders in Training up to 6th Graders in Training over in my TPT shop!

SaveSave
SaveSave

We "CAMP" Wait for Summer!! Can you?!?!

Happy Friday-eve friends!
Are you counting down the days till summer yet?  We have 25 days left - but there is so much to do between now and then!!  Assessments, report cards, countdown to summer, end of year activities, awards, and more!  But one thing I'm super excited about is our 2nd Grade Camp Day during the last week!
Last year, I did Beach Day as my end of year review classroom flip, but another teacher in my building did a very similar thing and so I wanted my kiddos to be able to have a different experience this year - thus Camp Day!

Throughout the post, you may find Amazon Affiliate links, which means Amazon tosses a few nickels my way if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that help keep my corner of cyber-space running!

I am going to transform our classroom into a campground complete with tent, lake, and even bears!  I found lots of ideas on Pinterest - so I'm excited to put it all together! But behind every classroom transformation - there has to be some educational value!  On our camp day, my students will rotate through centers - Language Arts centers in the morning and Math centers in the afternoon.  Each center will be a campground with a fun camp name!
To set the ambience, I like to pull up a video with a "scene setter" as well as background noises to make us feel like we are really camping!  Here are a few YouTube Videos you might want to use as your scene setter on your whiteboard or classroom TV.  I like to run my videos through ViewPure to make sure we don't get any ads.




After a camping warm-up morning work and reviewing expectations for the day with my students, we will dive right into learning and having fun!  My students will be split into small groups to rotate through each of the centers.

For Crystal Lake Contractions - I'm going to set up a lake in my classroom!  Easy-peasy using blue bulletin board paper!

I even had my kiddos collect sticks for me at recess a few weeks back!  I've got to get them to collect some more for me soon so I can make a campfire!

In addition to having each of these language arts centers set up, I am also going to have a tent set up for students to read in - this will be Camp Read-A-Lot (camp sign included).  I found this AWESOME tent at Amazon for less than $20 - it should easily fit at least 5 kids - especially since they don't mind being close to each other!  It's super easy to assemble - took me maybe 10 minutes to set up in my living room one afternoon!  My kiddos also LOVE using finger flashlights each week for Flashlight Friday - so I got a new box of finger flashlights so they can have one to keep after Camp Day!
       I'll keep the tent up in our room all day with a basket of books about summer and camping.  My kiddos love to read - so I know they'll be excited about getting to read in a tent!  I'll share suggested books later in this post.
After lunch, we'll have our math camp stations!

May favorite math center is the Build Your Own Campsite using arrays!  Students will get to design and create their own campsite using arrays - so all of the tents, cabins, lakes, etc for all students should be the same size - but they get to design the layout! All of the centers are aligned to 2nd grade Common Core State Standards!  I have tried to include a wide variety of skills that I have taught my own kiddos this year.  And this isn't just a "fun" day of easy review centers - some of these will definitely get your kids into using their brain to problem solve.
What I love best about these centers is that the kids can check their own work!!!  It's the last few days of school - one of the last things I want to have to do is to go behind my students to check their work - ain't nobody got time for that!  So, all but one of the centers have self-checking QR codes so students can check their own work!

We have plenty of iPads in our classroom, and my students are very accustomed to using the QR code reader to access videos, articles, and now answer keys!  When students scan the QR code, they will access a screen with the answers in a plain text format so they can check their work.  My students will check their work with a marker so I can see as I am monitoring what they are getting wrong.

After students check their work - just like at camp - they will earn a badge!  I use brag tags in my classroom, so my students will earn their camp badges to wear on their brag tag necklace.  I have included both round and rectangle camp badges so you can choose what is best for your classroom.

I love the look of the circle camp badges - BUT - cutting all those circles gave me a nightmare just thinking about it!  But, Fiskars came to the rescue!  I got an XL Circle Hand Punch that allowed me to easily and quickly cut out all the camp badges in no time at all. 

If you don't use brag tags in your classroom, I have included camp badge collection sheets that students could put their badges on.  I'd suggest using 8.5x11 Avery label sheets so that these are like stickers for students - just cut out for students and they can add to their collection sheet.

I've also included LOTS of other goodies in this set to make for more than a days worth of camping fun in your classroom!

I mentioned earlier that I'm going to load my Camp Read-A-Lot tent up with a basket of books about summer and camping.  Here are some of the books that I'm going to include for our Camp Day reading!

  

What kinds of fun do you have planned for your students for the end of the year?
SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave