(upbeat music) - Oh, gosh, I've got a lot to put away here.

Okay, let's set that back there.

Oh, hey campers.

I'm just starting to clean up our campsite because this is our last week here at Camp Read-A-Lot.

So, I'm so excited that you're here with me.

I'm Mrs. Hammack and this is Camp Read-A-Lot.

This is the place where we have all kinds of fun, reading and talking and learning and singing and doing all kinds of activities to help us grow to be strong readers and I am very happy that you have joined me.

Parents, you know, something that might be fun for you for the remainder of the summer or maybe into the school year to help your kids to engage in reading every day at home, you can make reading into a fun family bingo game.

So, here's my bingo card.

You can design your own bingo card with your family.

You can put things on it, like read in your pajamas or read to a stuffed animal, read a nonfiction book, read on a Friday, read outside.

It doesn't matter, you can put whatever you want on your bingo card and then, your kids have the job of reading every day.

Have them pick a box and that's how they read for the day, for their time of reading and when they get a bingo, you can give them a small prize.

Maybe a Popsicle, maybe a candy bar, maybe an extra 10 minutes of playing their favorite game or maybe it's they get to say when it's a family game night.

Just a fun way to help kids that might be a little reluctant to participate in reading at home in their free time.

This might be just the thing that helps motivate them and gets them to pick up that reading habit.

So, I hope this helps you with some ideas and I hope you'll try it at your house.

I know I'm gonna try it at mine, it's gonna be so much fun.

All right, campers, let's sing our hello 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 ♪ All right, it's time for our pledge, here we go.

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.

Great job.

All right, today, we are going to train...

Uh, Scooter?

Um.

What are you doing upside down in the backpack?

Yes, it's the last week of camp, I know that.

Oh, oh, okay, well, let me help you up.

You don't need to pack up yourself yet.

We still have a few days left, but I appreciate your efforts, thank you very much, yes.

So, let's train our ears for sound, the campers are here, yes, and we're gonna play the segmenting game.

All right, so segmenting is similar to what we did yesterday with our onset and rhyme.

I'm going to tell you some sounds, you need to blend them together and tell me my word.

First, we're just gonna do it without any help and then, we're gonna use some pictures to help us.

Are you ready to try it?

Okay, turn up your listening ears.

All right, here we go.

F, r, eh, in, d. Phew, that's a lot of sounds, let's try it.

F, fr, en, duh.

Friend, good job.

Wow, that was a hard one.

Okay, you ready for the next one?

You need to pay close attention.

Ss, mm, or, ss.

Yes (laughs) did you get it?

Scooter got it.

Ss, mm, or, ss.

S'mores.

Yes, all right, that one was just for you.

All right, next one.

B, r, ay, d. B, r, ay, d. B, r, ay, d. Braid, very nice.

Let's take a look at our pictures and see if that makes it any easier for us to segment.

Okay, so we're gonna look at our picture.

This is, ready?

F, l, i.

Fly.

Sometimes those words with consonant blends at the beginning are very tricky.

Let's try this one.

Okay, I know you know what that is.

Let's take it apart.

Ss, in, ay, k. Ss, in, ay, k. Snake, great job.

All right, let's try this one.

T, r, ee.

T, r, ee.

Tree, good job.

And I have one last one.

Now, let me help you with this.

Okay, it is a flag.

So, let's break apart flag, are you ready?

F, l, ah, g. F, l, ah, g. Flag, great job.

Oh, you guys are so good at that.

I have a joke for you 'cause that's something I'm good at.

Here is my joke.

Why didn't the tiger finish eating the clown?

Why didn't the tiger finish eating the clown?

Nope, not 'cause of his curly hair.

Because he tasted funny.

(laughs) Get it?

A clown's funny and he tasted funny.

Oh, that is so good.

Ah, he didn't eat him 'cause he tasted funny.

(laughs) Oh goodness.

All right, it's time for us to do our catch of the day and we have some great words.

This is one of my favorite stories.

Are you ready to sit down?

Okay, sit down right there.

Our catch of the day words today are optimistic.

Optimistic.

That is a humongous word, do you know what it means?

It means when you feel positive about things, that things will be good.

So, if you are optimistic about the day, that means you feel good, that it's gonna be a good day, optimistic, hmm.

All right, this word says scene, scene, a part of a story where the action takes place.

Can you think of another word that kind of matches that, that we've learned?

Setting, good.

Scene and setting, they're similar.

It's where is the story taking place, good job and successive.

Whew, successive.

That means just one right after another, successive.

All right, yep, Scooter likes to eat successive s'mores one right after another.

He can be kind of like that.

Are you ready, Scooter?

All right, let me get my reading tools on.

Remember, if you need reading tools to make your eyes their best, don't be shy, put 'em on.

Everybody has different things that they need to be successful.

This is another story about hope.

Hope.

Remember, hope is what you want or wish for, something that you're really thinking about that you hope happens, or you want to have happen.

This story is called "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst.

Does that sound like a story of hope?

Hmm.

It sounds like the opposite of hope to me, right?

So, I'm wondering how they're going to tie hope into this story.

Here's our front cover and our back cover and remember, our back cover, sometimes they tell us a little bit about the story.

It says, Alexander wakes up with gum in his hair.

His best friend is mean to him.

He has to eat lima beans for dinner and there's kissing on TV.

For Alexander, it's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So, that gives us an idea of how the story's gonna go, doesn't it?

Hmm, I wonder how it ends.

Let's find out, let's jump in and see where the story takes us.

"I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now, there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning, I tripped on my skateboard and by mistake, I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell, this is gonna be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Do you think he's feeling optimistic?

No, he is not being optimistic.

"At breakfast, Anthony found a Corvette Stingray car kit in his breakfast cereal box and Nick found a junior undercover agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box.

But in my breakfast cereal box, all I found was breakfast cereal, ugh.

I think I'll move to Australia.

In the carpool, Mrs. Gibson let Becky have a seat by the window.

Audrey and Elliot got seats by the window too.

I said I was being scrunched.

I said I was being smushed.

I said, if I don't get a seat by the window, I'm going to be carsick.

Nobody even answered me.

I could tell it's gonna be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

That's kind of rough, isn't it?

He just started his day and he's already decided how his day's gonna go.

Hmm.

"At school, Ms. Dickens liked Paul's picture of the sailboat better than my picture of an invisible castle.

At singing time, she said, I sing too loud.

At counting time, she said, I left out 16.

Ugh, who needs 16 anyway?

I could tell, it was gonna be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I could tell because Paul said I wasn't his best friend anymore.

He said that Philip Parker was his best friend and that Albert Moyo was his next best friend and that I was only his third best friend.

I hope you sit on a tack, I said to Paul.

I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice cream cone, the ice cream part falls off the cone and lands in Australia."

Hmm, he's in a bad mood.

"There were two cupcakes in Phillip Parker's lunch bag and Albert got a Hershey bar with almonds and Paul's mother gave him a piece of jelly roll that had little coconut sprinkles on top.

Guess whose mother forgot to put in a dessert.

It was," say it with me, "A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Can you tell how he's feeling?

Look how they made him look.

"That's what it was because after school, my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in me.

Come back next week and I'll fill it, said Dr. Fields.

Next week, I said, I'm moving to Australia.

On the way downstairs, the elevator door closed on my foot and while we were waiting for my mom to get the car, Anthony made me fall where it was muddy and then when I started crying because of the mud, Nick said I was a cry baby.

And..." If that wasn't enough, let's see what happens next.

"And while I was punching Nick for saying that I was a cry baby, my mom came back with the car and she scolded me for being muddy and fighting.

I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told everybody.

No one even answered.

So, then, we went to the shoe store to buy some sneakers.

Anthony chose white ones with blue stripes.

Nick chose red ones with white stripes.

I chose blue ones with red stripes, but then the shoe man said, hmm, we're sold out.

They made me buy plain old white shoes, but they can't make me wear them.

(groans) When we picked up my dad at the office, he said I couldn't play with his copying machine, but I forgot.

He also said to watch out for the books on his desk and I was careful as could be except for my elbow.

He also said, don't fool around with his phone but I think I called Australia.

My dad said, please don't pick him up anymore.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

There were lima beans for dinner and I hate lima beans.

There was kissing, ugh, on TV and I hate kissing, ugh.

My bath was too hot, I got soap in my eyes, my marble went down the drain and I had to wear my railroad train pajamas.

I hate those railroad train pajamas.

When I went to bed, Nick took back the pillow he said I could keep and the Mickey Mouse nightlight burned out and I bit my tongue.

The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, and not me.

It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My mom says some days are just like that.

Even in Australia."

Wow, have you ever had a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day like Alexander?

I know I've had a few, but you know what I have learned about terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days?

You get to decide if it stays that way.

Yeah, it's weird, but it's true.

You have the power to decide to have a good day.

Things might not go the right way or they might not go how you planned, but it's your attitude and it's how you deal with things that will determine if the day stays bad or not.

It's you that can make a bad, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day better by deciding you're gonna have a better day and you can do that anytime of the day.

I wish that he had decided to have a good day after he had a rough morning.

Sometimes we need people to help us when we're having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So, my hope is that, you have a friend or maybe your mom or dad, and you can just have them help you to change your perspective or change how you look at things and to be more optimistic.

Try to think about the good things that have happened in the day.

He didn't talk about any good things that happened, but I bet there were some.

What do you think?

Of course, because we have good and bad things that happen.

So, I hope that when you are having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, you decide to fix it 'cause only you can.

Now, sometimes things happen to us that we're not in control of, but we can control how we respond.

Our response, how do we act or behave after something bad happens and we're in control of that.

I know it's a lot of power, you have the power.

Let's take a look really quickly at our chart here because we're gonna talk about the setting or the scene and in scene number one when he gets out of bed and he finds that he has gum in his hair and all the mess that started, he tripped over his skateboard, where is he?

What's the scene for that?

Where's the setting?

Yes, he's in his bedroom.

He wakes up with gum in his hair.

He trips and drops his sweater.

All right, then we move to scene two.

His brothers find cool toys in their cereal boxes, but he finds nothing, just cereal.

Where does that happen?

Where are they in the story?

What's the scene?

Right, he's in the kitchen.

All right, think back to the story.

First, he was in his bedroom, then he was in the kitchen, where is the next scene that happens?

Yes, he's in the carpool.

Do you know what a carpool is?

A carpool is when moms and dads get together and they take turns driving all the kids to school.

So, maybe his neighbors had boys and girls his age that went to the same school and their moms took turns or dads took turns driving the kids to school.

That way, not all of the moms have to drive and so, he was in a carpool, and what happened?

Everyone got a window seat except for him, that's right and he didn't get a window seat, even though he tried to tell them that he was gonna be carsick.

Do you think he was really gonna be carsick?

No, I don't think so either.

I think he just wanted a window seat, right?

Very nice, I think you are right.

All right, we're gonna stop there, but I have a joke for you because then I have an activity that's gonna, you're going to have to use your good brain power to help me.

All right, are you ready for this joke?

It's a good one.

Where do cows go on a Friday night?

Where do they go on Friday nights?

To the moo-vie theater.

(laughs) Get it?

Moo, that's what a cow says.

They're going to the moo-vie theater.

That is funny, oh my goodness.

I love it.

All right, today, we're gonna try something.

Have you, remember, we've done some retelling of stories before when we go to the activity table and we tell the story over again.

Sometimes we used puppets, sometimes we changed the ending, like in "Chrysanthemum," we talked about how they could have been kind to her.

Today, we're going to use our story, come on over here, Mr. and we're gonna see if we can change it from a negative story to a positive story.

What would the story be like if it was a fabulous, wonderful, awesome, amazing day?

Let's go to our activity table and see if we can think about how to change this story from a negative to a positive.

Let's go.

All right.

All right, Scooter, you sit here, so you can help me.

All right, so we would have to change the name from terrible, horrible to something fabulous, wonderful, awesome, good day and then, let's see how we would start this story.

At the beginning of the story, he went to sleep with gum and it got from his mouth into his hair and when he got up out of bed, he tripped over it, oh, we'd have to change it a lot, right?

So, what could we say instead?

He woke up and had great sleep, his hair was perfect, like it had already been combed.

That would be different, right?

And what about his tripping over the skateboard?

Oh, maybe his room was spotlessly clean and he was early going downstairs for breakfast and when he gets downstairs for breakfast, maybe he's the first one and he finds the toy in the cereal.

You see how we could change that story?

I hope that you have a fabulous, wonderful, very good, terrific day, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Buh-bye.

(upbeat music)