For a Forest or Camping themed classroom: Find activities, crafts, snacks, and more ideas than you can use for your Preschool, Kindergarten, or First Grade class and students. Plus FREE DOWNLOADS!
For the last few years, I have been doing a forest/camping theme in my classroom. I love it! The kids do, too. There are so many fun classroom activities, crafts, and decor to use. I wanted to take a little time to compile some of my favorites that we've used so far. 

**This post contains affiliate links.**

When I first decided to do a camping forest theme, I started by picking a color scheme for the room. Browns, and various shades of blue and green. I ordered fadeless bulletin board paper and started by deciding which colors I wanted on which bulletin boards.

Here's a cute bear cave bulletin board idea. I didn't put this one up, but I like it a lot and may use it in the future. It'd be super cute with the kids names under the bears. Or add bear ears to the kids face pics and put them up "in" the cave.

I have to pause and just say, if you've never used fadeless paper for your boards, then you have to stop everything you're doing right now and try it! This stuff doesn't ever fade. Like ever. The only time I ever change it is when I get sick of the same color and decide I need something different. You're classroom will thank you, trust me! It'll be vibrant always...no more dingy looking boards after the sun has sucked the life out of them! Ok, getting off my soap box now...

Once my paper was up, I actually set decorating the boards aside and just started browsing around for things that I could use to set up my room. I figured I could lay them all out later on and decide what to do with them once I was ready.

Here are the cool ideas I discovered to use:

I found this super adorable rug at IKEA to use in my reading area. And it has been quite the hit! *Edit* IKEA no longer sells this rug, but you may still be able to find a fun forest themed rug online by clicking HERE.
Rug from IKEA. Might need this for my forest themed classroom.
I also found this super awesome inflatable campfire to use at carpet time! So far, it's proven to be of good quality and still inflates years later. Although, I only deflate it at the end of the school year when it's time to pack things up for summer cleaning.
These hanging swirls made a really nice touch after I hung them from the ceiling. They made the room feel really festive and fun. And the bonus is that they belong to a Camp Adventure Party Theme! So I was able to get all kinds of things that matched.
Like this 3D centerpiece that I put at our small groups table. I move it when group is in session, but the kids love having it there for our meet ups. 
I use these party invitations to mail out to my students right before school starts...and I "invite" them to come to my classroom on the first day of school! 
On the first day of school, we have a snack using these adorable themed plates, cups, & napkins. Just to get our camping adventure started off right! 

Here are a few snack ideas you can try. Pick your favorite or try them all!



During the first few days of school, take your littles on a nature walk, and let them collect items and put them in these adventure boxes to take home! You can bet they'll be running home with full excitement to show their families! Use a black Sharpie to write their names on the side so they don't get mixed up after the walk is over.

I found some adorable forest themed characters that my good friend, Let's Learn S'more, has created for classrooms. To introduce her characters to my classroom, I use a coloring book that she created that allows students to "meet" the characters.
The animals you'll meet are Bablo Bear, Rascal Raccoon, Oscar Owl, Darla Deer, Max the Moose, Scurfer Squirrel, Skyler Skunk, & Felix Fox.

It also comes with a matching class book. Each book is 14 pages long. We leave the class book in our book rack that sits in front of our carpet for carpet time. The kids love referring back to it all year. 

I also use the adorable classroom posters she made to hang up around my room. They come with both the character's name and the general animal name on them. 


Not only to they add to the decor, but there is a write-the-room activity that goes with them also!
One more resource I love from this collection is an interactive positional words emergent reader.

There are two sets available. One has the general animals names (bear, fox, squirrel...) and the other uses the character names (Bablo Bear, Felix Fox...). 

To add even more fun, students use this:
and their newly learned knowledge of positional words to cut and paste the animals into the correct page of the book! Each page offers clues to help figure out where the animal goes. I love that this book meets CC Kinder standards!

Want to try her resources? She offers this FREE DOWNLOAD that goes with her theme.
In this resource, Bablo Bear and his friends need the students to help them by tracing words on the paper. All of the words start with the same letter as the character that needs help. Cute!

At MPMSchoolSupplies.com, I found a Word Search book that has many themes in it, including woodland animals!
The puzzles in this book help students build alphabet comprehension, word recognition, and thinking skills.

I like to have the kiddos use highlighters when they find the words. Yes, I realize that that sometimes means the paper winds up kind of messy if they make mistakes, but it's just how I prefer them to do it. They can also use yellow, orange, pink, or green crayons.

For the classroom though, I think it'd be best to laminate the pages so that students can use dry-erase markers and reuse over and over again. Or put them in dry-erase pockets that you can find at MPM School Supplies.

Don't forget to sing about going on a bear hunt!

And read about it, too, around the campfire!
We're Going on a Bear Hunt.
There are motions you can do with each and every page. Very interactive and the kids love it! There's a YouTube video I let them watch too of this story:

Doing a mini-unit on fireflies is a great fit for your camping theme too! You can read about a really cool book and FREE resource that you can use in another post I wrote:
"How to Survive as a Firefly" Life Cycle Flip Book


Here's a few pics of what that resource looks like in action!




Ok...so let's bounce back to a few more classroom decor ideas.
I found this balloon tree for the wall...but haven't tried it yet. I'm nervous too. It looks really cool, but I'm worried that my students will pop the balloons. Thoughts?

I felt that this one was a little more safe...but still really cool looking:

If you're feeling crafty, you could try these really cool owl paper lanterns. They don't look very hard and are on my to-do list. I already bought the lanterns...now just have to make the cute owl parts and glue them on.

Just a sidebar here...but if you haven't seen these already, there are so many cute things you can do with paper lanterns in you're classroom. Like these cute fish...

Ok, I have a few other things I'd like to show you and then I think you should be good in the ideas department and will be ready to get your own forest/camping themed classroom started!

I made a couple of things for the forest/camping theme to use with my kiddos. One of them is this set of  Camping Themed Sticker Incentive Charts that you too can have (if you'd like them!) for FREE...
They go with 1/2" stickers and have both full-color and less-ink options for printing.

I also made some BINGO game sheets that would go along with my theme. 
They include four different BINGO games: Alphabet, Numbers, Color Words, & Sight Words. 

Don't forget the S'mores!
Here's a less messy way to have a sweet S'mores treat in your class...

Speaking of S'mores...
Don't I have some chocolate around here somewhere?
{wink!}

~Til next time
     
For a Forest or Camping themed classroom: Find activities, crafts, snacks, and more ideas than you can use for your Preschool, Kindergarten, or First Grade class and students. Plus FREE DOWNLOADS!
If you haven't read "What's in the Ocean?" Activities for Kids - Part 1, you'll want to read that first. There are a lot of FREE downloads you won't want to miss! 

This week, we continued our exploration of what exactly is in the ocean. 
I'm going to show you a ton more activities (including free downloads) that you can use with your students.  
But before we dive in, let me show you an Ocean Themed Color-By-Number Resource that you can download right now for absolutely FREE!
Use it for fast finishers, recess time, to reinforce number and color recognition, or just for fun!











We also took a look at the land that borders the ocean. You know it best as...
THE BEACH! Woo-hoo! 



I found an adorable little series called Stella and Sam by 
Mary-Louise Gay that I definitely will be using again in the future. The 
one used for this theme was Stella Star of the Sea.



Stella and her little brother spend the day at the sea.
Stella has been to the sea before and knows all its secrets,
but Sam has so many questions!


We talked about the various things you would find as 
you walked along the beach. Starfish was one of the 
first answers the kids gave. I found that the kids mostly only know 
that a starfish had five arms and "stuck" on to things! 

I found some neat videos that helped the students 
understand more about them:

We learned that although we call them "starfish", their real name is 
"sea stars" and they are not a fish at all! They do not have gills, scales, or fins like fish do and they do not move the same through the water. 
Fish use their tails to push them forward in the water, 
but a sea star uses tiny tube suction feet to 
help them move along.

Watch how they move. 
(Click to the side of the play arrow.)

This next video shows how a starfish uses its rays (or arms) 
and the suction tube feet underneath to flip over.

We learned an amazing ability that the sea stars have...
They can RE-GROW their arms!

This one shows a starfish being fed.


We also learned that...

Starfish have spines on their backs that they use for protection. 
We made a craft that emphasizes these spines.

First, we painted the starfish a tan color from the 
FREE starfish template I found. 
We cut it out and glue it to a blue "ocean" background.


Then we painted it again and sprinkled rice 
on it to represent the starfish's spines.




I made a sentence
template for the kids to 
cut out so they could glue on:
"The spines give the sea star protection."





They turned out great! We hung them around our classroom for decoration:




We also spent some time exploring jellyfish

Did you know...
… some jellyfish are bigger than a human 
and others are as small as a pinhead?

… people in some countries eat jellyfish?

… jellyfish have no brain but some kinds have eyes?

… that jellyfish are mainly made up of water and protein?

… a group of jellyfish is called a smack

Learned something new, didn't you?!

I found this great link on
 that let us really explore jellyfish.
Click here to see it.

We got to read about them, watch a short video, see a map, print out a trading card, and even email an e-card to our principal!

We watched some really neat videos that let us see jelly fish in action.


...watched a jellyfish dance...


...saw a jellyfish get eaten by a sea turtle...


...and learned about a relative of the jellyfish-
the Manowar!


We made our very own jellyfish using balloons and streamers!




First, we cut strips of streamers into skinny strips.



I taught the kids how to use a tape dispenser...
they don't have that lesson in the curriculum! (wink)



Then we taped them onto the bottom half of the balloon. 






We added some eyeballs...even though 
we know jellyfish don't have eyes.
Before you knew it, our classroom was swarming with jellyfish!




Did I mention we got a new class pet?!
Why, it's a jelly fish, of course!



Hard to see it, but it's in there!

First, fill one of the bottom corners with water and rubber-band it closed.


Now, I should say that the directions I used were unclear as to 
how big the corner of water should be. Just think to yourself that 
it has to be able to squeeze into a 2 Liter jug.

Then we cut the remainder of the baggie into strips. 
And trimmed some to be shorter than others.


The kids decided his name was going to be "Squishy." 
So we stuffed Squishy into the empty 2 Liter jug.


Then we filled up the bottle to the top with water and added a few 
drops of blue food coloring to accent the look.
(Shout out to the wonderful teacher across the hall 
who loaned me her blue food coloring since I forgot mine!)

Get your very own Jelly Fish in a bottle directions here.

I also sent home instructions on 
how to make jelly fish flashlights!



Click here to make a flashlight for yourself!


We didn't make these...but I thought about it! 



Maybe next year.

Meanwhile, author Jane Clarke introduced us 
to a new friend named Gilbert. 



I love how this book enhances the learning we did on remoras as well. 

We followed up with a great sequel:



And on a different day, we read another book 
about our new friend titled: 



Continuing our exploration of sharks, we worked on one 
of my favorite labeling activities....

First we used the smart board to 
learn andtalk about the various parts of a shark.



Then we spread out on the carpet 
with clipboards and filled in our sheet.



We also cut out the parts and glued them on.




Go to Regina Davis's store to find this shark labeling writing activity.

Have you seen this awesome shark video before?
(Click to the side of the play arrow.)




I could sing that song all day long! Ha!

In this next book...



...Stanley the fish encounters a scary shark as 
he is searches for his school of friends.

Most of all, I love the vivid colors author/illustrator, 
Matt Buckingham, uses in this book.





One of our writing times brought out all kinds of fishy stories! 
These are some of Deanna Jump's writing sheets that 
we've been using this year.

I gave the students the following prompt:

If you could be any ocean animal in the world, what would you be? 
And what would you do?

Here are a couple of responses!

"I'm a jellyfish. I'm stinging people."

and this one...

"I am a yarn fish. And I hide."

I don't know what a yarn fish is...so don't ask!

In other beach-y news...


I buried a bunch of different types of shells in the 
bottom of a foil pan and covered them more with sand. 



Then we explored and compared/contrasted the different 
shells as we found them. I had enough so that the kids could 
each pick one to take home.
Some pieces of coral were even found in there!



I also had ordered these fun sandcastle picture frames 
from Oriental Trading. This craft is a great activity for practicing 
patience and self-control with glue! Ha!

First we punched out all the pieces.



 Then we slowly started putting it all together.


Before we knew it, it was done!



Wrapping things up,
We had a special visitor today...

We had a guest teacher come in and give us a little demonstration and tutorial on how to use and put on scuba equipment


The kids were absolutely thrilled! They listened completely 
bug-eyed and had a million questions for her!
It was quite a special treat!

Well, this diver is wiped out from all that ocean exploration we did! 
There are 8 more days left of students in attendance.

14 more days til summer break.

(Not that I'm counting...)

Til next time...
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