Little Campers!

It's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday linky to showcase my week.  We began our camping unit and we are having a blast with our activities.  Camping just may be one of my favorite themes.  It reminds me of camping when I was little, plus it's priceless to see the excitement of my little learners as they explore and learn.

I hauled in a bunch of camping items from home, including this old Christmas tree stand, which worked out perfectly to make our 'campfire'.

 The emerging readers couldn't wait to get inside with flashlights and books!

Speaking of books, this little number is PERFECT for a camping unit.

I read it with the lights off and a flashlight.  The shadows showed up great on our team board {which was turned off}.

 Then, the brave little campers took turns getting inside the tent while I held up a black die cut and created a shadow with a flashlight.  They had to guess what the image was.  Guess what they played during free time???

We also played a shadow match memory game, which they loved.

We made cute little campers

 by cutting, gluing, and adding the number of stars to represent our age.

I love how they turned out!

Another activity designed to help increase memory skills was putting out various camping equipment, having a little learner hide in the tent, and then take one, two, or even three items away and have them tell what's missing.

What's so great about this activity is you can very easily differentiate it by the number of items put out and taken away.

What's camping without s'mores?

We made some by layering graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows of the same shape.

 We also counted marshmallows {white pony beads} on sticks {pipe cleaners}

and then 'roasted' them over the fire.

This math activity was super fun and I was able to really challenge their thinking by rolling the die/dice and having them figure how want more was needed to make 10.  We also worked on counting on, which can be tricky for my pre-k sweeties.

And, of course we did some good old fashioned dramatic play with all the camping stuff.  

This by far was the most popular center this week.  The play schemes they came up with were quite involved.  I was so proud and thrilled.

 I added lots of new activities to my camping pack on TPT.  It's 155 pages long and will be on sale through the weekend.   You can check out the updates HERE or by clicking on the picture below.

How was your week?  Link and let us know!

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day!  :)