For my last two weeks of ESY I will be doing a camping theme with my preschoolers. (This post contains affiliate links)
When I found this campfire toy from Learning Resources, I knew I had to plan sessions around it. It is too cute!
We worked on sequencing, object functions (eat, give light, pick up food, keep us warm, cook food), expanding utterances (cook the marshmallow, cook the hot dog), basic concepts (hot, on, off, in, out) and good ol’ play skills! My students loved switching the hot dog and marshmallow on and off the fork!
We also read “A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee“.
This book is great for rhyming, verbs, vocabulary, wh- questions, sequencing, and more. As we read, we used the camping set to do each activity along with the characters.
We also targeted vocabulary using Cariboo. Lots of this vocabulary was new to my students. It was a great way to work on functions of objects.
I also used this freebie from Jessica Finch on TpT. I was able to target a variety of goals using dot markers. I also wrote home to parents on the language page when we had read the book, since the scene goes great with the story. One friend worked on following two-step directions using dot markers and the vocabulary from the book.
Our last activity was Camping Categories. We targeted broad and specific categories by sorting visuals (sleeping bags) into the correct tents (which also each had visuals to depict the categories). I recently gave this resource a facelift, so if you already own it – go redownload!
Students sort 60 objects (sleeping bags) into 5 broad categories (the big tents). Those items can then be sorted even further into 19 more specific categories using the small tents. Each tent has a visual on it to help those non-readers.
This theme was so fun and will span for two whole weeks because I’ve got so many ways to incorporate it. I hope you find some useful ideas!
