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?!?

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Making It To Summer Part 4: Beach Day!

Welcome welcome friends!

This is the last post in my Making It To Summer series - a series filled with tips and products to help you make it to the final bell signaling the start of summer! Today is all about something I am super excited to start doing in my classroom - Beach Day!!

After visiting The Ron Clark Academy last month, I started looking for opportunities to make learning come alive for my kids.  If you follow me on Instagram, then you'll know I turned my classroom into an "ocean" earlier this month when we did Shark Week.

When I started looking at what we were going to do at the end of the year to review all that we have learned this year, my Just Beachy End of Year Review Centers inspired me to turn my classroom into a beach!  

So off to Dollar Tree to load up on supplies...

Centers supplies

Small buckets were a set of 3 for $1

Tablecloth - "ocean water"

Palm Tree Decor

Chevron InnerTube (from Walmart)

Leis - packs of 6 for $1 - each kiddo will get one

Cups and drink umbrellas - I have asked parents for fresh fruit to put into the cups with drink umbrellas.  We will also have goldfish, water and lemonade for our beachy snack.

Photo booth supplies!  I found the awesome beach backdrop at Party City for about $7 and this will hang in my room to be a backdrop (pictured below) for our photo booth area.  Hula skirts, fun beach sunglasses and beach toys will complete the photo booth.  I'll bring a big bucket from home to put all the supplies in.

The beach scene setter is huge!!  The two large panels just about complete covered the cubbies in our classroom which was perfect and the exact place I wanted to hang it!  I used binder clips to hang it - so I can hang it the day before and just pull the scene setter up in the morning so they can put their book bags and such in the cubbies, then pull it down to make our backdrop.

Now, what are all the snorkel masks and sand scoops for?  These are going to be used for centers of course!

For my Scuba Diving For Inflections ELA center, the kids will get to wear the goggles while they are working in the center.  I only purchased 4 goggles, so that center will be limited to 4 kids at a time.

Note: the goggles are made to cover the nose, I just small scissors and cut the nose part off the bottom so they could breathe while they are working and wearing their goggles.

The small buckets will allow the kids to sort the cards while working.

For Digging Up Facts & Opinions, I got these large sand scoops from Dollar Tree so the kids could sort the facts and opinions cards on the scoops instead of in the buckets.

In addition to our photo booth scene setter helping set the beach mood, I'm also going to have a beach scene video going on YouTube so we can transport ourselves to the beach with the waves crashing and palm trees swaying.  The video is 3 hours long so I won't have to keep restarting the video all day - just a couple times.  

Wanna keep your video ad-free?  Head over to The Brown Bag Teacher's blog with a couple of websites and browser add-ons you can use to keep your YouTube videos safe for young eyes and ears!

My Just Beachy Centers are perfect for creating your own beach day or just for reviewing concepts at the end of the year with a beach theme.  I've used these centers for a couple years now, but am so excited to take it to a new level!

If you stayed with me through all of this - then you deserve a freebie!

Click the image below to grab my Beach Day booklet cover.  I took all the center sheets I wanted my kiddos to complete during Beach Day and copied/stapled them as a booklet so they don't lose their sheets.

The file is editable - download as a PowerPoint file from Google Sheets and you can edit the text box with your name, beach name, a place for students to record their name, or whatever floats your boat!

What fun activities do you have planned for the last days of school?