Welcome to the 1950s room transformation to celebrate the 50th Day of School Room Transformation. Let me walk you through some of the decorations and how we created them to spark engagement for the 50th day of school. Most importantly, I hope you get some easy 50th-day-of-school ideas.
Check Out The Before
Here is a glimpse of my classroom before the room transformation. I literally took these pictures just before we started decorating. We took down our student artwork from their clips and moved the desk over. And we began to piece together the diner themed outside.
Let me also state that we have always celebrated the 50th day of school with a sock hop and 50s-themed learning activities. Our admin encouraged us to up the game this year with more decorations and integrated more people into our school to help with the transformation. She also secured funding for some of the decorations you will see. Any larger backdrops were school purchases. We also got sunglasses for all the Kindergarten students in case they don’t come dressed up. Most of everything else you see can be made with school items we already had or could get cheaply.
Diner-Themed Outside for 50th Day of School Room Transformation
This theme was Pinterest-inspired. We started by adding blue paper to the background with tape and hot glue. Then, we added cut black construction paper into squares and glued it to big white poster paper. This creates the checkerboard-themed bottom. Next, we hot glued it on top of the blue. The diner header is black paper, measure out, and rounded on the corners. Then, we die-cut pink circles and letters for the food items on the bottom. The “Rock n Roll Diner” letters were cut out of pink paper and accented with hand-punched white circles. We are hopeful that the bottom checkerboard and top header can be reused year after year.
The guitar detail is created by cutting out paper and backing it on cardstock. Same for the window people. These details are 100% reusable. The records and 1050s artist images are also laminated and can be reused. The only items purchased for this transformation for this section were the car cutouts. (Here is an Amazon link to the cars.)
Diner Themed Inside
Here is a look at the inside of my classroom. We kept the setup almost exactly the same as we always have it, we just added pink and blue plastic dollar store table clothes and simple paper/record decorations. We are using these tables for learning and art so we don’t want anything we want to reuse to get ruined.
This large diner-themed backdrop was purchased by the school and is hanging from the ceiling. (Link to this backdrop here.) We did use a little cardboard across the top of the backdrop and we used binder clips. This is a very simple and pretty quick setup for the 50th day of school ideas.
1950s Room Transformations Glimpse
Here is another peek into my classroom setup. Simple plastic table clothes and leftover paper for the win. I won’t lie… the Juke Box was created by a coworker who LOVES these kinds of projects and she goes over the top. She told me it plugs in and turns on… so I can’t wait to check it out.
Simple decorations are always fun. These are plastic glasses with chocolate and strawberry flavors (aka shredded papers) and tissue paper whipped topping is cheap and precious. We added these details to my technology table since we knew the room was tight but we wanted the theme to carry through the entire class. Those record-looking table décors are actual records from Goodwill.
A Little Goes a Long Way
I am so proud of the way my room transformation came together. But I know that every classroom can’t do a full transformation. Maybe you have students who thrive with consistency and need it to learn. I would not be able to do this full-room transformation every year either, but I can this year so was pumped to be able to. Keep in mind that simply works! Add a simple header or banner to your calendar or smart board with some music notes! This can take minutes and cost you very little. Most importantly, it is a way to dress up the room without stressing out your learners who can’t handle it.
That Juke Box
I have to show you this Juke Box. I didn’t make it but man… my coworker went over the top with this detail. Remember she LOVES this stuff and offered to do it. The idea of making this myself stresses me out, but she was truly excited about it. I know my students will love to see what a Juke Box looks like and this is as close as we can get. You can easily grab a jukebox decoration to put up! Here is one on Amazon.
Our 50th-Day Schedule
We are doing real work on our 50th day so grab some 50th-day-of-school ideas for learning here too. To start, we will be doing our Daily 5 structure in the morning. We will be diving into 1950s writing and little reader as well as a painting of 5 sets of 10 to create 50. Room transformations are about engaging our learners and using that engagement to teach them. Counting to 50 is hard work in Kindergarten but we are up for the challenge.
Then, our students will be doing to the gym for a hula hoop contest and a sock hop during their special time. We love to use the Just Dance song Barbara Anne to teach them some moves and we teach them The Hand Jive. They really get into some of these moves and do so well with them.
Next, we will come back to the classroom and we will do a three-room swap. Since we have 6 Kindergarten teachers in my school, we have two groups of 3 to swap out, and this swap is based on their location. Each group of three Kindergarten teachers will swap classes for quick and FUN activities.
More 50th Day of School Ideas
Each classroom in the swap group has a theme, one is a jukebox and we will be making an art project jukebox and working on the idea of now and them. Next, one room is a diner and they will work on creating diner hats and tasting moon pies for the snack. Lastly, one of the rooms is a drive and they will discuss what a drive-in was and how people would watch movies. This room transformation is over the top and I can’t wait to show it to you.
Additionally, we will be decorating the lunch room with simple table clothes and we will be playing 50s music. Our lunch staff has agreed to be part of our day and dress up too. Finally, when the students come back to the rooms after lunch, we will be making coke floats as we discuss first, then, last. We will taste them and make a math chart to show who liked coke floats and who did not.
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