C is for Camping

For Tot School, we're following a letter of the week format. I'm not quizzing or drilling anything in to Eli, just simply introducing letters and having fun around that letter during the week. 

We've been lucky with the themes I chose to go with: they've suited everyone for three weeks now! 

This week, we went with "camping" (and caterpillars) as our theme. Homeschool Creations and 2 Teaching Mommies had some FANTASTIC camping preschool packs that I split between Eli and Turner. We had other things to do this week, so today was the only day we did our camping theme. I had intended for it to be week-long fun, but why drag it out when you can cram it in to one day? 

Turner working on a maze from Homeschool Creations camping pack. 

Eli, practicing following a line. 

We made a fire by rolling up rectangles cut from paper bags. I spray painted two opened paper bags (because the spray paint was right in my sight in the garage as I grabbed the recyclables). The kids tore the bags in to pieces and we crumpled them up and hot glued them everywhere. This led to an interesting conversation about why I chose two different colors for fire. We were able to talk (simply) about the heat differences and the way gasses burned. 

Probably my favorite shot of the day: Eli with bed-head around noon, and breakfast still on his face! They painted a sign that said "Welcome Campers." While they were doing this, we talked about camping and Scouting. Turner is pretty obsessed with turning 6 (he just turned 5) so he can start Boy Scouts. 

Canteen craft. I think I was googling "camping theme" or something like that. I saw someone glued two paper plates together and stuck a water bottle in the middle. We (un)fortunately had some juice pouches left over from Turner's party so I stuck that in the middle. 

We were supposed to go on a hike with our canteens and backpacks but as I looked at the forecast last night and realized we were in a monsoon all day I quickly thought of activities to do inside. I remembered a game I made up a few months ago and wondered if we could go fishing in the bath tub.

It worked! The kids loved fishing! I had intended to do more with "Go fishfor the letter B!" but the baby was in to everything! In the two seconds it took me to take this picture and get down (ahem, from le potty), Deacon was in my room splashing in the toilet saying "baaafff!" (bath). So, the big boys ended up in a fishing competition.

Meet the Dubiens was, again, the inspiration behind our "Fun Food Friday." The kids LOVED last week's lunch even though I thought it was a total fail. They talked about it all week so it was a no-brainer wether I'd do it again! 

S'mores on the grill. It rained all day and everything was SOAKED! 

My three campers! 

I totally forgot graham crackers, but remembered I had ice cream cones from Turner's birthday cake!  John stuffed marshmallows and chocolate in them and put the cones on the top rack of the grill while the kids roasted their own marshmallows. Then he added the roasted marshmallows to the top with some chocolate! 

Campers ready to Turn in for a short movie on the computer, in their "tent," of course. Unfortunately, there are still boxes from our last move (ahem, like 11 months ago) we haven't opened and I'm positive the tent is in one. I just couldn't get to it this week!

It doesn't look like much, but the kids had a blast! Turner even proclaimed this "the best camping ever!" Too bad we've not taken them on a real trip yet! 

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