Grandma's Camp Read A Lot

Once upon a time, when my girls were in college, I got a "real" job at an agency that had a grant to do after school tutoring to "at risk" youth and it had an emphasis on literacy.

It was a dream job for me, totally God planned for my exact circumstances.  I loved it and I worked at it for 8 years, until my granddaughter was born.

For several summers I ran an 8 week small summer camp for grades K-6 called Camp Read A Lot.  Their parents were at our agency for parenting classes, or GED, or budgeting etc.  

I had to plan activities that spanned those grades and they were all focused on children's books.

Now, reading is my absolute favorite thing, and both of my daughters are avid readers too, and we are determined to make readers of the next generation.  So...

Welcome to Camp Read A Lot

Of course every camp has to have a T shirt!

These were made by a friend of Laura's.  Aren't they darling?

This whole idea kind of started with the 30 minutes it takes for  sunscreen to soak in.  You see, when the grands come to swim their mothers lather them in sunscreen, as they should, but then the poor kids just sit and look at the pool and it is a loooong 30 minutes.  So I decided this year we would read as we usually do, but I would dig through my old work stuff for some simple crafts to do to go along with the books.

And as the story goes, if you give a mouse a cookie...

I got a little carried away with the fun stuff.

I wanted clip boards for them to write on, because we are outside and all of my outdoor tables are "holey."

These are great because we can keep the papers in them and they are pretty cute too!  Of course I ordered these first and I didn't know what our shirts were going to look like.  I wish the bookworms were the same, but I'll get over it.

First day of camp.

Excited campers!

The campers are hard at work.  Our first book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar {you saw that coming didn't you?}

I found some printables here.  They were great too, had some color matching for our almost 3 year old, some printing copying for our kindergartners, and some writing for our 2nd grader.  She's looking up the words in the book.

These were the totes for each camper.  Things were a little hectic and I didn't get a picture of all four of them.  I just put a toy, a bubble thing and 3 books for each child to start them out on a summer of reading.

My daughter's cricut and vinyl made Target dollar bins pretty cute.

Our camping snack was a different kind of s'more.  I used alpha-bits cereal, mini m & m's, and mini mini marshmallows. 

I got these cute bags here on Etsy and the stickers here.

I have decided that prizes and treats will be awarded for every 5 books read.  These are the bookmarks that will accompany the book for the prize for 5 books.  The treat for 10 books will be Movie Morning.

That was an easy decision as I have to watch all 4 kids on Wednesday morning.

I gave each child a baggie of 3" circles.  We are making bookworms to decorate our family room.

I am reading books from this list.

So far we've read:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2.  Corduroy

3.  The Story of Ferdinand

4.  The Runaway Bunny

5.  Make Way for Ducklings

6.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Follow along on our reading adventure.

Any guesses on how many books we read?

*updated here

Sharing at Richella's Grace at Home party.