(lighthearted guitar music) - Three, two, one.

Here I come, ready or not.

(gasps) Oh, hey, hang on!

The campers are here.

I'll come find you in a minute.

Hello, campers!

Scooter and I are just playing a little hide and seek waiting for you.

I'm so glad that you're here today at Camp Read-A-Lot.

I'm Mrs. Hammack, and welcome to Camp Read-A-Lot.

Camp is a great place for learning and having fun.

And at Camp Read-A-Lot, we will spend our days reading, and talking, and singing, and learning, and all kinds of activities that will help us to grow to be strong readers.

That's right.

Hey parents, you can help at home.

Did you know that reading aloud benefits everyone: little kids and big kids, children and teens, because you can read stories that maybe they cannot, and it really, really helps those kids that are struggling because you can help build their listening vocabulary.

There are skills that you can practice just by reading aloud and talking about the story.

So, think about some of those chapter books that you read when you were a kid that you really enjoyed.

I know we loved the "James and the Giant Peach."

I know we loved "Indian In The Cupboard."

There are some fabulous classic stories that I bet would be fun to introduce to your kids.

You could read a chapter a night and talk about it.

I know it's one of our family's most cherished memories when our kids were little, is reading a chapter a night together out loud and having a great family readout.

I hope you'll take advantage of that.

Campers, are you ready for our song?

♪ Hello readers ♪ ♪ Hello writers ♪ ♪ Hello campers ♪ ♪ I'm glad you're here today ♪ ♪ Hello readers ♪ ♪ Hello writers ♪ ♪ Hello campers ♪ ♪ I'm glad you're here today ♪ Let's do our pledge and then we better go find Scooter.

Are you ready?

On my honor, I will try my best to be kind to everyone, to have a smile on my face, and a song in my heart.

Good.

Hey... it's sometimes to be kind to everyone, isn't it?

But I am proud of you for trying and I hope you continue to try to be kind to everyone.

All right, are you ready to help me find him?

Okay, where should we look first?

Should we look up?

Let's look over here by the stump.

Okay.

Ha-ha!

Oh, he's not there.

Do you think he's in the tent?

Okay, let's go look, come on.

Shh.

Ha-ha!

Oh, that squirrely guy.

Oh, I bet you're right.

He loves that crazy tree.

I bet that's where he is.

Let's go.

(screams) (sighs) Oh my word, you scared me.

Get over here with those shoes.

You still have those shoes on.

Oh my goodness.

There's the campers, can you say hello?

Are you ready to play our game today?

We have a really fun game to train our ears for sound.

We are going to train our ears with the sound changer game.

I know it's a hard game, but I think our campers are ready.

Don't you?

Oh, stop.

You're so silly.

Let's see if we can do the sound changer game.

Come on over and I'll explain what it's about.

Here we go.

I am going to tell you a word, I'm gonna use the dots to help you with the sounds, and then we're gonna change one of those sounds to make a new word.

You ready to give it a try?

Excellent, here we go.

Ha, eh, tuh.

Hit.

Hit.

What would I have if I changed the -eh to -ah?

Whoop, can I get in there?

There we go.

Let's see.

Ha, ah, tuh.

Hat, great job!

When I changed the -eh from hit to an -ah, it becomes hat.

Great job!

All right, let's try another one.

Are you ready?

You did that pretty well.

Okay, you ready?

All right, here we go.

Mm, ah, puh.

Mop.

Mop.

What if I change the... Mm Oh, that's a good one.

I changed the mm, ah, puh...

I changed the mm to a tuh, what would it be then?

Let's see.

Tuh, ah, puh.

Top, great job!

We went from mop to top.

Yes, they do rhyme, good listening.

All right, let's check the next one.

Are you ready?

All right, let's do this one.

Buh, ee, guh.

Big.

Let's change the -ee to an -ah.

Now, we will have buh, ah, guh.

Bag.

Very nice, good work!

Do you see how playing with words and sounds can get you comfortable with hearing them and blending them together?

And that's gonna help you when you're reading.

Great job.

I have a joke for you.

Are you ready?

Oh, I love this one.

Here we go.

Why are frogs always so happy?

Do you know why they're so happy?

Why are frogs always happy?

Well, that's easy, because they eat whatever bugs them.

(laughs ecstatically) Get it?

Frogs eat bugs.

Or when somebody's bothering you, we say, "They're bugging you," and so they're happy because they eat whatever bugs them.

(laughs) Oh, that was so good.

Are you ready for our story today?

You are?

We better do our catch of the day.

Did you... Ooh, wow!

You caught four words today for us.

You were busy.

Yes, I know you'd like to have us more to replenish your energy.

I totally understand, but we have to do that later, okay?

Oh, all right.

I, yes.

I promise.

I promise, promise.

You can have one.

You sit right there, be still.

All right, my friends.

We have four words today.

Ooh, this is a humongous word.

This must've been hard for you to pull out of the water.

Preposterous.

Say that word, preposterous.

What do you think that means?

It means ridiculous or it doesn't make any sense.

It is preposterous that you want to eat s'mores for breakfast.

(laughs) All right.

Meander, meander means to wander.

It means you're not in a hurry.

I know some of you like to meander down the hall at school on your way back to class.

Meander, mm-hmm.

All right, how about boulder?

Do you know what a boulder is?

A boulder is a very large rock.

And then this word is gorge.

Now, gorge can mean other things, but in this story, it means a deep, rocky valley.

So, it's like, there's some hilly spots and then a valley is the space in between the hilly spots and a gorge, in our story, is going to be a rocky valley, okay?

All right, so let's see.

Our story today is called, "The Secret Shortcut."

Do you know what a shortcut is?

A shortcut is, yes, when you know a faster way to get somewhere.

You know what I've noticed, though?

Often, a shortcut is not really a shortcut.

Sometimes, it ends up taking longer.

Have you noticed that too?

Well, I think you're gonna notice that in this story.

But this story, I want you to look for evidence of confidence.

Now remember, confidence is believing in yourself, being proud of who you are, but not in a braggy kind of, "Look at me, look at me," it's just knowing that you know how to do things and that you can do it, that you can accomplish it.

And so, I want you to look for evidence of that in our story today.

Before I read, I need to put on my reading tools.

All right, I am ready.

This story is called "The Secret Shortcut" by Mark Teague.

Mark Teague is an author and illustrator that writes many books and there are some other great books he writes too.

"The Secret Shortcut" by Mark Teague, he's also the illustrator.

"On Monday, Wendell and Floyd were late for school."

Ooh.

Does she look happy?

No, she does not.

What, what are they doing?

What does it look like they're doing?

What can you tell in the picture?

Yeah, it looks like they're kind of trying to explain why they're late, right?

"They had nearly been captured by space creatures, they told their teacher.

'Ridiculous,' said Ms. Gernsblatt, and she warned them not to let it happen again."

Do you think they were really captured by space creatures?

Hmm.

(clears throat) "But Tuesday was no better.

'Pirates were loose in the neighborhood.

It was sheer bad luck!'

Wendell and Floyd explained when they showed up late for school.

'Preposterous!'

said, Ms. Gernsblatt.

On Wednesday, even though Wendell and Floyd left early, a plague of frogs made them late, once again.

'Absurd!'

said their teachers.

'I'm warning you, you be here tomorrow on time or else!

And no more crazy excuses.'

'There's got to be a way to get to school on time,' said Wendell, 'We'll just have to leave earlier.'"

(clears throat) Excuse me.

"Floyd arrived at Wendell's house so early the next morning that the sun was barely up and Wendell was still in his pajamas.

'I've got an idea,' said Wendell as he quickly got dressed.

'We'll follow my secret shortcut to school and get there even sooner.'

'Shortcut?'

asked Floyd.

'I didn't know there were any good shortcuts to school.'

'This is the secretest shortcut of all,' said Wendell.

'In fact, I invented it myself.'

He led Floyd up the alley by the Oolick's backyard, and then down a culvert, over a fence, and through a dense thicket of blackberry vines."

Does that sound like a shortcut to you?

"Then they scrambled over some boulders, and down a steep bank, and across a narrow stream."

I don't know about you, but does that look like they're still in their neighborhood?

"'This is some shortcut,' said Floyd.

'Relax,' said Wendell.

'We'll be there in a minute.'

But the forest became thicker and darker.

Soon it was hung with vines.

The screeches of strange jungle animals echoed all around.

'Uh, maybe we took a wrong turn,' said Floyd.

'I'm pretty sure the school is straight up ahead,' Wendell told him."

Is Wendell feeling confident?

Absolutely.

How about Floyd?

Does Floyd have any confidence?

Uh, he's not so sure.

"But the jungle only grew wilder and when the boys finally came to a trail, it didn't lead straight to the school as they had hoped.

Instead, it meandered through quicksand swamps and past sleeping crocodiles."

Oh my goodness.

"And across a deep, rocky gorge..." Oh my word.

That bridge looks terrifying.

I'm not sure I would have the confidence to go across it.

"It began to get late.

'This is going to be hard to explain,' said Floyd.

They stood in a small clearing.

'I have an idea,' said Wendell.

'We'll climb a tree and see if we can spot the school from up there.'"

Well, that Wendell is full of ideas, isn't he?

"They chose the biggest, tallest tree they could find and climbed all the way to the top.

'Do you see the school?'

asked Wendell.

'I don't even see our town,' said Floyd.

They watched some monkeys playing in the treetops.

'I have another idea,' said Wendell.

'What is it?'

said Floyd.

He was getting tired of Wendell's ideas.

'We'll swing from these vines just like the monkeys,' said Wendell.

'That way, we'll travel much faster.'

Soon, they were swinging from vine to vine.

'This isn't bad,' shouted Floyd.

'I'll bet we're making good time.'

'I knew this shortcut would work out,' Wendell crowed.

But at that very moment, they ran out of vines.

And they landed, plop, plop, in a giant puddle of mud.

'Now what do we do?'

asked Floyd.

'I don't know,' said Wendell.

'I'm out of ideas.'

They sat in the puddle and thought about all the trouble they were going to be in.

'Ms.

Gernsblatt will never believe this story,' said Wendell.

'Well, it is sort of crazy,' said Floyd.

And just then, from far away, they heard the school bell ring.

'Did you hear that?'

asked Wendell.

'That was the first bell.

We can still make it if we run!'

They ran until the jungle gave way to the forest and the forest became woods.

And then they scraped through the Morley's backyard and up the hill to the school.

They flew through the door of Ms. Gernsblatt's room and landed squishily in their seats just as the bell rang.

'Well, you made it,' said their teacher.

'And just in time.

But how on earth did you get so muddy just walking to school?'

Floyd looked at Wendell and Wendell looked at Floyd.

'On second thought,' Ms. Gernsblatt said.

'Maybe you'd better not say.'

During recess, Wendell and Floyd sat in the sun to give the mud a chance to dry.

'Well, at least we finally got to school on time,' said Wendell.

'That's the main thing,' said Floyd.

And, in fact, it was quite a while before they were late to school again."

Wow.

"Even so, they never did find a really good shortcut."

Oh my goodness.

Did all of those crazy things actually happen to them on their way to school?

What do you think?

Hmm.

Has that ever happened to you on your way to school?

They had really good imaginations, didn't they?

But did you notice in the story, they still continued to keep trying, even though they were met with lots of challenges.

So, here on our reading power chart, it says, challenge.

Two friends need to get to school on time.

That was their challenge, right?

And how did they react?

Wendell has a specific plan and shares it with his friend.

What was Wendell's plan?

Right, he had a shortcut, but was it really a shortcut?

No, it was not a shortcut maybe a long cut.

(laughs) It probably took them extra long.

Another challenge they had, they need to cross a deep, rocky gorge.

Hmm.

So they needed to cross and what was their reaction?

Both friends take their time crossing and don't look back.

Remember that big bridge that we looked at that I said I wasn't sure I could do?

They did it and they didn't look back, they just kept going forward.

And the last challenge that I have here is the boys hear the screeches of strange animals in the dark jungle.

And how did they react?

Wendell keeps a positive attitude and encourages them to keep going.

So, Wendell kept encouraging his friend Floyd saying, "This is the shortcut.

Come on, let's keep going."

So they had confidence, even if maybe it was misplaced.

They knew that they would eventually find school.

Yeah, that was pretty incredible.

What a great sense of adventure and what a great imagination.

That was a fun story that Mark Teague told us.

And you might be able to write some crazy fun stories like that, too.

I have another joke for you that I would like to share before we go and do our activity.

Do you think you're ready for another fabulous fun joke?

Okay, pop up here.

All right.

(clears throat) Are you ready?

Okay.

What kind of bee can't make up its mind?

What kind of a bee cannot make up its mind?

Do you know?

Hmm.

A maybe.

(laughs ecstatically) Get it?

Maybe.

It's like you haven't decided yet.

Yeah, a maybe.

I like that one.

Oh, I'm confident in my joke-telling, because they're really good and so funny.

Are you ready?

We're going to do some confidence practice today.

Today, we are going to talk about strategies and make something to help us when we're feeling like we're not having the confidence or believing in ourselves when we should.

And so, I have an activity that I hope will help you and you need some paper, and either crayons or markers, and then we're gonna meet you at the activity table, so that we can help you come up with a confidence builder.

Are you ready?

All right, come on.

All right, you, sir, are gonna sit right here, feeling very confident in your shoes.

All right.

You know, everybody has times when they lose their confidence or they kind of don't feel so confident or believe in themselves the way that they should.

And confidence is really important to have because it helps you to accomplish your goals.

So today, I'm gonna share with you some confidence mantras.

Now, a mantra is something that you tell yourself or that you repeat to yourself, and it kind of helps you to snap out of maybe a bad mood or something that is negative instead of positive.

So, here are some confidence mantras that you might like.

I just chose a couple, like this one.

"I am shooting for the stars.

I'm going to dream big."

That might be something that you think, "Oh, I like that, I'm gonna say that to myself when I'm feeling down."

Or maybe, "I can fail and get up again."

You know, boys and girls, sometimes, we don't do everything exactly right the first time, and guess what?

That is okay.

It's okay to fail.

You know what's not okay?

It's not okay to stay.

It's not okay to stay in your failure.

You need to get up and try again and it's okay to fail, you just have to keep going.

And that's an important message.

Or maybe you wanna say, "I am the hero of my own story."

Maybe that's something that would help you feel good.

You are the hero of your own story.

Or maybe you wanna say, "I am important.

I'm loved, I'm valued, and I'm heard."

Those are great messages that we can tell ourselves.

So, I want you to think of one and then I want you to make yourself a poster.

Mine says, "I am..." And then I'm going to write on here, "Important," because that's the mantra that I want to remind myself of when I'm feeling down, "I am important."

And then I'm gonna decorate it with some stickers, and I'm gonna make it really beautiful, and I'm gonna put lots of colors on it.

You can decorate yours too.

And then I'm going to take this and I'm going to hang it in a spot in my room where I see it every day.

And before I go out to have breakfast, I'm gonna repeat it to myself, "I am important.

I am important."

Because you are.

So, find a mantra or a saying that helps you feel good and helps you remember that you can believe in yourself because we all have days when we don't, and you need to have a little saying that you would tell yourself to make yourself feel better.

♪ Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink ♪ ♪ Skinny Marinky Do ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink ♪ ♪ Skinny Marinky Do ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ I love you in the morning ♪ ♪ And in the afternoon ♪ ♪ I love you in the evening and underneath the moon ♪ (mimics wolf howling) ♪ Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink ♪ ♪ Skinny Marinky Do ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ And you ♪ ♪ And you, and you ♪ Have a fabulous day and believe in yourself.

Bye-bye!

(lighthearted guitar music)