Summer Units - Camping

We went camping last weekend, and so it became a perfect choice for this week's theme.

Previous Summer Themes:

Week 1 - Ice Cream

Week 2 - Monsters

Monday - Math

For our math activity this week, we reviewed shapes with an engineering twist. Marshmallows are a huge part of camping. So we used them with toothpicks to create some 2D shapes. I created this invitation, and left it for when the kids were ready.

I love how well they worked together!

They created a square, a triangle and a rectangle. Here they are, pretty pleased with themselves.

Then I asked them to create some 3D shapes as well. Honey Pot learned the names of them in Kindergarten (such as cube, rectangular prism and pyramid). I had expected the kids to go in that direction, but they interpreted my instructions to mean any 3D construction. I didn't fight it! I let them built as they wished. It started with a simple house.

Then it just exploded into this.

And finally...into this! They had a blast.

Tuesday - Literacy

This week we borrowed a few camping books from the library. We love Ladybug Girl so that was our favorite for this week; as well as the Curious George, which came from our home collection.

In addition to the books we'd been reading this week, I also offered a quick rhyming activity. I made "tents" out of scraps of paper, and provided the kids with pictures that they had to sort into the appropriate tent. First it was Honey Pot's turn. I asked her to create our Rhyme Time Campground by arranging the tents where she wished.  

Then I had her name the item in the picture, and place it inside its tent.

In the end, all of the items made it back to their own tents. Little M&M had a turn as well, though we played a little differently, to accommodate his reading level!

Wednesday - Computer and Craft

The kids each had a little time on the I-Pad today, unrelated to our theme. But we also created campfires! First we went outside to collect some sticks. Then I asked the kids to arrange them the way they wanted them; and I used a hot glue gun to adhere them to our cardboard. We scrunched up pieces of crepe paper for our fire. And even added a hand, skewer and marshmallow. Little M&M had been asking to do this craft for a while, since he didn't get to do it with Honey Pot during our previous camping unit in 2014. I think they came out cute!

Thursday - Sensory or Science

We did a quick science experiment today that sort of goes along with camping. On our camping trip we used a lot of sunscreen! Whether we were heading out on an adventure, or just relaxing at the beach at our campground, we applied plenty of sunscreen! I came across this neat idea from Playdough to Plato to show the harsh effects of the sun when sunscreen is not used. I sprayed each child's hand with sunscreen and allowed them to make a hand-print on one side of the paper. Then we left it out in the sun for 3-4 hours. We talked about why we use sunscreen, and I asked them to guess what might happen to the paper.

Later when we came to see if there was a difference, we brought with us an unused sheet of paper for comparison. We could clearly see that the sun had faded the color on the paper, even in such a short time. Though it stayed protected where there was a sunscreen hand-print. Imagine if we had left it out for even longer!

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Camping Unit!

Honey Pot is 4 years old.

Little M&M is 2 years old.

Books

We did several activities in the week leading up to the kids' first camping trip. First, we borrowed the following books from the library.

Tong Transfer

I picked up a new set of kid tongs at Target and wanted to include them in our unit this week. Thinking about our upcoming s'mores treat, I decided to have Honey Pot transfer marshmallows. She was only too happy to oblige, because she knew she'd get to taste one when she was done!

Worksheets

There were so many wonderful printables to suit our theme this week. First up, we nabbed some prewriting practice and pattern completion from Homeschool Creations for Honey Pot:

Next, I printed a few printables from 2 Teaching Mommies' Camping Unit and Forest Unit. Some more prewriting:

...shadow matching, for both Little M&M and Honey Pot:

...these fun animal track puzzles, for both kids:

I gave Little M&M two pieces that fit together, just so he could do one puzzle at a time as well as work on animal recognition. He knows all of these forest creatures!

Honey Pot was able to complete the puzzles when all pieces were in front of her at once.

...and then some Which is Different worksheets for Honey Pot:

And finally, I printed this I-Spy game from 1+1+1=1. Originally it had words describing what to search for. But Honey Pot can't read yet, so I just revised the page for her using pictures instead.

Campfire Chalk Activity

I drew a campfire on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, and talked to the kids a little bit about campfire safety. For example, a safe distance to stand away from it and what to do if your clothing catches fire. We also talked about how water can put the fire out. So the kids tried to put the fire out with their squirt bottles.

When spraying didn't work, they just dumped their water bottles over it completely. We had to refill a couple of times to put the chalk fire out all the way. But they loved this!

Then Honey Pot demonstrated how to Stop, Drop and Roll.

...a few times. I'm glad she has mastered the material!

Nature Journals

I recently started a nature journal with Honey Pot, something I'd been itching to do for a while! She continued her journal with some camping activities. First, a couple of sticker stories! She put a few stickers on a page, and I transcribed the story she told about them.

Sticker story #2:

Then we used one more sticker, and I asked her to draw the forest around this moose.

She did a few trees before she wanted to move on.

Flashlight Star Search

Next we did a hunt for numbers. I wrote down numbers onto star sticky notes, and placed them around a room. Now that she can count by tens to 100, I felt she needed to learn how to recognize the numbers in between! So there was one number from each of the tens (i.e. 21, 32, 43, etc.).

Then I flipped off the light and invited Honey Pot to go star-gazing with me, in search of these numbers.

In order to figure out the numbers each time, she had to count to 100 by tens. Next time I think we'll bring in a list of these numbers so she doesn't have to recite them all. Definitely glad we're working on this!

Campfire Craft

For our last pre-camping activity we did a campfire craft. First some scissor practice, as Honey Pot cut her own strips of red, orange and yellow construction paper.

Then she glued some sticks onto a piece of black constructions paper, which I had glued to a piece of cardboard for stability.

More pattern practice! We placed the flames in this order: yellow, orange, orange, red.

Then she added some star stickers, because it was nighttime!

Add a marshmallow on a stick, for s'mores! Awesome!

Activities While Camping

Of course camping doesn't need to have structured activities. The kids stay entertained with hiking, fishing, throwing stones into the stream, playing on the playground, driving their toy trucks around the rough terrain, running around like maniacs...to name a few. But I wanted to make sure they didn't get bored. So I offered a few tricks too.

• Glowsticks or mini flashlights at night
• Using a bucket and shovel to collect rocks, pinecones, sticks, etc. and then count them up
• Tree-rubbings in their nature journals
• Making observations and hypotheses about the holes in the leaves (was it the very hungry caterpillar?)
• Homemade playdough to play with outside using natural materials
• Card games (Go Fish, Old Maid, and our newest storytelling game called Tell Tale)

 Nature Journal, revisited

We did one final entry in Honey Pot's nature journal to wrap up our camping unit. I printed out a fun template from KidSparkz and glued it into her journal. Then I invited her to color it in and draw a picture of her favorite part of our camping trip. She's not very keen on coloring, but I sure love her picture of a campfire and roasted marshmallow!

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