Camping Day!

For the last week of school my grade level does a bunch of fun "theme" days to celebrate.  We have had Game day, Movie day, Awards and Ice Cream day, Water day, and this year we started Camping day.

Camping day consisted of different activities in the classrooms that all revolve around nature and common things one might do while camping.  I say one might do because my version of camping would be in a hotel walking into nature for a day trip.  I don't like to "rough it".  

So here's what my class did.

*Solar Oven Smores

*Toilet Paper Bird Feeders

*Macaroni Picture Frames

*A Nature Activity Book (compliments from our town)

*Camp Sing-a-Long with the grade level outside

*Watching part of A Bug's Life movie, 

though for a minute in time I wished I owned Camp Rock.  

Solar Oven Smores

My class set these up pretty easy this morning.  I went into our local Round Table last weekend and begged the manager into donating 8 small pizza boxes to help my cause.  I then followed these directions from Family Fun to cut the box lid and get everything prepped for the kids.

At school this morning my students got into teams, and folded the lid up.  They taped foil to the flap, put foil on the base of the pizza box, and added a piece of black paper.  They then taped a sheet protector into the window of the box lid.  When they completed that portion, they used a BBQ skewer to prop the flap open.  

I think they turned out rather clever.  I was the one that stuck the graham crackers and marshmallows in the ovens, and moved them onto chairs set up outside.  All in all, it took about 75 minutes to make the 

marshmallow soft and squishy.

Then the kids formed an assembly line, took another graham cracker and chocolate chips outside where they created their smores sandwich.  

It was delicious!  

The Set Up - 4th graders can handle creating it.

All our smores in a row - being held down from the wind with packages of index cards.

 Toilet Paper Bird Feeders

My class also made toilet paper bird feeders today in our camping experience.  

 Step 1: Smear Cream Cheese onto Toilet Paper Rolls 

(I used cream cheese due to allergies and that I have learned 

Peanut Butter can cause bowel issues in birds.)

 Step 2: Roll it in bird seed (Yes, I used a big tub lid to catch the bird seed.)

 Step 3: Cut yarn, slip it through the middle of the tube, tie it, 

and stick it in a bag to take home.  

It was a crazy assembly line, but the kids had fun 

(and now birds are well fed tonight.)

Macaroni Picture Frames

This was another fun, simple project for the kids today.  Very easy to do, and cheap!  Pasta was $1, and I already had a huge box of popsicle sticks 

and old card stock paper.  

 They glued a frame onto the paper, it took a little bit to dry.  Then they chose their pasta to add to the frame.  Some kids got very elaborate with their designs.  The big thing I wanted them to do was to realize that there are so many everyday items they can use to create art.  

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,