9 Ideas for Camping Themed Classroom Activities
It’s June. And I am a tired teacher. Haha. Anyone else? This meme pretty much sums up how I feel at the end of the year. If that’s the case, then why bother with camping themed classroom activities at the end of the school year, you ask. You’d think I would be too tired for a mini room transformation, but here I am–doing the dang thing. But let me tell you..it was so SO worth it. I promise!
I hope you get some ideas from this post to create your own end of the year camping themed classroom activity transformation!
However, with all of that being said, we still have wildly energetic students that still need to be engaged in learning, plus we as the teachers need time to work on end of the year paperwork, report cards, end of the year student portfolios, etc. so we need our students to be working independently and kept busy! Butttttt how in the actual heck do we do that at this time of year?
Pin this image if you don’t have time to read this blog post now. That way you can read this later.
Camping Themed Classroom Activities and Transformation
Here’s how I combined both of those needs {engaged, busy students and uninterrupted teacher time to work on end of the school year stuff.}
During the last month of school, I transformed my classroom into a CAMPSITE and my students rotated through various camping themed classroom activities.
Oh, and that term “transform” is taken very lightly because it’s the end of the year and I’m tired haha. You can go as BIG or SMALL as you’d like with your camping themed classroom activity transformation.
I wish I took better pictures but I asked a few parents to send in tents so we could set them up around the room. I also tried to create a tent using brown construction paper. It took me FOREVER to create this ONE tent using student desks…so I stopped at the ONE! Ha! It was a total hit though! My kids loved it and begged for a turn at the “tent table”.
I also grabbed these picnic/camping themed table cloths for my mini room transformation. You could cover your work tables or student desks with these table cloths.
Camping Themed Classroom Activities: STEM
I also had my students make their own camp fires as a STEM project, to add to our camping room transformation. I gave them paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, construction paper, and tape. They worked in groups to create their camp fires. I didn’t give them any type of HOW-TO instructions for the camp fire—I kept it super open-ended, to foster creativity. We did this on day 1 of our camping themed classroom transformation.
Campfire and Reading Activity
This next activity is super easy to implement. I emailed my parents and asked to send in flashlights. Each student was able to have their own flashlight for the duration of our camping themed week, which was awesome. If you don’t have enough for each student, they can absolutely share.
I turned off the lights and pulled up this youtube video of a camp fire crackling. The kids literally went crazy for this. They sat on the floor… some students in the tent, some students around the campfire that they had built, and JUST READ. It was so flipping relaxing…just the best.
Camping Themed Fishing Activities
OKAY. Let me tell ya…this next activity was the MOST popular activity throughout the entire unit! My students were literally chomping at the bit for this one!!
I created “ponds” around the classroom. I bought blue pool noodles from the dollar tree, duct taped the noodle together to make a pond. I then added “fish” multiplication fact cards, “fish” prefix cards and “fish” synonym cards. The fish cards can be found in this 3rd grade camping themed activities pack. If you’re looking for cards for your 2nd grade classroom, the “Fish” addition, antonym, and adjective cards can be found in the 2nd grade camping themed activities pack here.
If you’re pressed for time and don’t want to use pool noodles to create a pond, you can also use any large tubs you have in your classroom and turn those into the “ponds”. (see picture below)
How I Made the Fishing Poles
First, I laminated the worm then attached a small magnet to the back of the worm. Next, I hot glued a piece of yarn to the back of the worm. After that, I hot glued the other end of the yarn to the large popsicle stick. VOILA! Super easy and I actually made 6 of them in less than 15 minutes during one of my planning times.
You can also see in the picture below that I taped a paperclip to each of the fish cards.
Hiking for Word Problems Activity
Next, we created binoculars for our Hiking for Word Problems activity. I gave my students toilet paper rolls, fun colored duct tape, and markers for them to create their binoculars!
The 2nd grade version includes a mixture of word problem task cards AND other math review task cards, while the 3rd grade version only includes the word problem cards.
Making Solar Ovens and Solar S’mores
We also read about Solar Ovens with this mini book and then created our own solar ovens to make s’mores! Ahhhh seriously–SO MUCH FUN! I emailed parents asking them to send in any extra shoe boxes they had at home so we could do this activity! I had enough shoe boxes for students to work in pairs.
Camping Themed Math Riddles
This activity was also another hit because duhhh what kid doesn’t like riddles?!
They worked on these math skill pages to reveal a camping themed math riddle. First, they would answer the math problem in order on the page, then immediately after answering the problem, they would find that matching answer. Once they answered all of the problems, the answer cards would reveal the answer to the riddle. It was so cute to see my students laugh at the camping jokes! It made my teacher heart so very happy seeing my students have fun, laugh while also engaged in their learning!
Camping Themed Project Based Learning {Summer Camp}
I failed on the picture front for this activity and completely forgot to take pictures of examples of these but my students also worked on this Summer Camp PBL, as part of our camping themed classroom activities unit. I allowed them to work in partners to create their dream summer camp!
They had to decide on camp activities, the camp fees, the food menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and more! I just stapled all of the PBL sheets from this pack and my students were good to go! They loved working on this project inside the tents. Working inside tents just makes everything WAY more fun!
Camping Themed Print and Go Printables
These PRINT and GO camping themed printables were also perfect for stapling together and having my students work on {inside a tent of course} so that I could continue to work a little bit more on my end of the year paperwork, while they kept busy and engaged.
Camping Themed Unlock the Fact Math Puzzles
Have you seen my Unlock the Fact math puzzles, yet? I’m OBSESSED with them and so are my students! So, of course, I had to create a camping themed set.
Basically, students will answer the math problems, put the answers in order from least to greatest, then a fun fact is revealed! So in this particular set, camping related facts are revealed.
I ONLY have a 3rd grade version at the moment. And you can grab them for free HERE. I will be working on a 2nd grade camping themed set soon! I promise!!
You can read more about my Unlock the Fact math puzzles using the links below. You’ll be able to see how they work, how low prep they are, and how there’s nothing else like it in the teacher world!
Related Post: A Twist on 3rd Grade Math Games
Related Post: A Twist on 2nd Grade Math Games
I hope you were able to get a few ideas on how to create a camping themed classroom transformation. If you liked the specific camping themed classroom activities in this post, you can find the 3rd grade camping themed pack here or the 2nd grade camping themed pack here.
____________________________________________
Xoxo
