Indoor Camping

     I do not like field trips. Never have, probably never will. I was a nervous and anxiuos child so going on a field trip was hard for me. I was hoping to out grow it, but sadly, as a teacher, I hate them even more. Too much worry and stress involved. What I do enjoy is creating a new environment within my classroom for the kids to explore. 

    During our summer program, I decided to give the kids a camping experience. I brought in a pop up beach tent, made a fake fire, put up a Christmas tree, and created fun activites to do.  I made the fire by laying toilet paper rolls in a circle. I then wrapped a touch light in yellow and orange tissue paper. I placed the light in the middle of the toilet paper rolls. The kids loved it. 

    First, we sat around the fire. I put marshmellows on the end of cake pop sticks and we pretended to roast marshmellows. We sang a few of our favorite songs and then I read a couple of stories to them.

  

     I created some activities and games for us to do next. We went fishing. Using small dowel rods, I added yarn and a paper clip to make the fishing rods. I tied a ribbon to various small prizes and placed them in a bowl. I then covered the bowl will blue plastic and surrounded it with construction paper for the grass. I made slits in the plastic for them to lower the hook into.

    I set up craft stations. The kids got to decorate a birdhouse and paint a bandana to wear. The picture below also shows a "Welcome Campers" banner along with some paper trees. 

    I made goody bags with items for them to make smores when they got home. These are easy to make. You just place a small Hershey bar, a marshmellow and a graham cracker in a ziplock bag.

    The best part of my class going camping was hearing them tell their parents about it. This is something that I am definetly going to do every summer. It was fun and easy to put together.