I recently had the opportunity to “update” my daughter’s first grade classroom library. The teacher wanted a jungle/wild life theme to go with the class mascot, the wildcats! There were a few key areas I wanted to focus my attention on; bulletin board, building a tree, building a “reading hut” and adding a few additional products to make the classroom library inviting as well as exciting for the students.
I started with creating a bulletin board on the wall. I used green butcher paper for the background and embellished the wall with the Safari Bulletin Board Set. The set includes cute letters wrapped in vines, safari animals, tree branches, and sand dunes to name a few. We decided to spell out "wildcat classroom"; however, if your classroom does not have a mascot you can put "classroom library" or "wild about reading" as alternative titles for the board. 
I added some tropical leaves and a bamboo garland to the board. My favorite safari animal is the giraffe eating the tropical leaves! The plush long arm zoo animals hanging from the vines are a super cute addition to the classroom library as well. Overall, the new bulletin board was a success. 
What's a jungle safari without a tree?! I love the way my tree turned out. It was really easy to build but did take a couple hours. I started by measuring how tall I wanted the tree to be. I cut the brown butcher paper the height of the tree. Then I started to cut the tree trunk (freehand). I laid out the brown paper across the desks and started cutting from the bottom of the trunk. The branches I cut out separately and stapled on later. Once the main part of the trunk was cut, I used a stapler to attach it to the wall. I cut out a few branches to add to the tree and stapled those to the wall. I had the branches go up to the ceiling. I just love the way it looks! Now that was the most challenging part! The greenery on the tree are these green tissue pom poms used for party decorations. The green tissue pom poms are perfect for building a classroom tree. They make the tree look full of life! I stapled a few of the pom poms to the wall over the branches. The pom poms on the ceiling I attached with clips. 
My next project was to build a little t.p. tent for the kids to read in. I found this awesome DIY A-frame tent tutorial here. I did not add a cover like the one in the tutorial, here's why...you want to be able to fit at least 2-3 kids comfortably in the tent and every teacher will want to keep an eye on their students. So, that being said, here is what I did; I made one of the "sides" of the tent, the actually opening. I took a queen size white sheet and draped it over what will be the "back" of the tent. I made sure that the sheet touched the ground. I then pulled the sheet taunt and used a staple gun to secure it to the wood t.p. I cut slits in the sheet at the top where the two posts cross and connect and pulled sheet down. I stapled the sheet to the two sides of the tent and trimmed the sheet at the bottom so it wasn't too long. I rolled up the remaining sheet in the front around the large dowel and rested it in between the posts at the top. Next, I took some raffia door curtains and draped them over the white sheet and used the ties to wrap around the wood posts to secure it. You can also add some staples. Attach a few of the tropical leaves with the staple gun to the posts. 
I tied two Polynesian torches to each side of the tent with twine. I love the details on each torch. Each torch has pretty shells that hang from the front. 
The tent needed a soft carpet to be placed on and the wild about books classroom rug fit perfect! 
I added a few plush pillows (large green pillow, medium green pillow and medium yellow pillow) for the kids to get comfortable on along side their furry plush zoo animals! 
This classroom library makeover was a huge success! The teacher absolutely loved it. The kids have a fun place to escape and practice reading. I will say though, building the tree was my favorite part of this reading corner makeover! The tree brought so much character to the reading corner space and I can't wait to see what the kids think of it this August!
