Last year, before the end of the school year, I saw a picture of someone’s classroom on Instagram and I immediately wanted to steal the idea: the entire classroom was turned into a camping site with lots and lots of colorful tents, much like the ones above! It was genius: cheap plastic tablecloths draped over desks to resemble a tent! I had plenty of tablecloths in every possible color under the sun in my prop bins! I could totally do it. However, I had to wait a few months since I already two new room transformations lined up for the months of May and August.
… but come September, I was ready to… go camping! The first step was to personalize the tent signs with our school’s initials: CME stands for Cheyenne Mountain Elementary. You could have your students’ names on their tents, but since I have students come and go every 30 minutes {I have a special education resource type class}, this idea wasn’t feasible for me. I don’t doubt though that they would have a blast seeing their names on the tents! In case you are wondering how I created that pointy top, it’s not hard to guess: an open binder will do the trick. However, here’s a tip: to make sure your binder stays in place, place it on a cookie sheet. The sides of the tray will prevent the binder from falling flat on the desk and collapse the “tent”. This was my partner’s idea and I thought it was brilliant. It didn’t require any extra work and definitely no money since I already had binders and cookie sheets galore.
Next, I painted some stars on navy bulletin board paper and some trees on green, and slapped them around my room, covering the furniture completely. {Don’t forget to set aside any materials you may need from the shelves prior to covering everything with the paper!}
Our students enjoyed they tents and I allowed them to choose their position: completely inside the tent sitting up, laying on their bellies, sitting outside the tent, and pretty much any position they felt comfortable in as long as they were able to pay attention and participate in class.
The GT teacher lended me a pop up tent which I placed in the middle of the room and which served as a common area for a lot of students, including some of the students that were visiting from the ELL room and the other Special Education classroom. {This was a theme shared by all the interventionists at our school, as well as the speech pathologist.}
My first graders went fishing! They each had their own “pond” and fish, aka Fry words or CVC words to fish and read. The rule was simple: if they could read the word correctly, they could keep the fish, if they couldn’t read the word or hesitated, they had to throw the fish back into the water. I was nearby to listen in and offer support where needed.
My favorite activity of the day included “roasting marshmallows”, aka sight words or CVC words. The kids were given printed crackers, printed chocolate pieces, and words written on marshmallows. They had to roast the marshmallows, then build a s’more. I believe they had a blast because even a week later they were still asking about roasting more words.
For my students working on segmenting CVC words, I had an even better idea: I placed three small velcro dots at the end of their roasting stick and gave them marshmallow letters. They had to pick a picture of a CVC word from a pile, spell the word by sounding it out and place the letters in the correct order on the stick.
My third graders went on a hike around the room and found their reading passages scattered throughout the woods. They had various tasks from reading fluency to reading comprehension, making inferences, and finding text evidence. Once they got their passages, they returned to the “campgrounds” and set to work on their tasks.
As for my Kindergarteners, they went on an adventure by the river. They “spotted” various animals in the woods and had to solve math problems using them (aka mini erasers). Then they came across a phonemic awareness challenge: they had to walk over a bridge, find an animal card, take a picture of it, then walk back and (1) say the first sound the animal’s name began with, (2) segment the word into sounds, or (3) say a rhyming words, depending on their phonemic awareness level. This task was fun because it involved multi-sensory stimulation and lots of movement, balance, and coordination.
During the nature walks, I played nature sound selections from YouTube, and while the kids were around the campfire, I had cricket sounds on. Other hooks included binoculars, lanterns, backpacks, walking sticks, folding chairs, and camping signs placed around the room. A lot of the things used for decor were items we had at home and we shared them, so this room transformation was done with literally $0. I believe a lot of the elements that created the simulated environment are easy to procure and some are available in nature, like my roasting sticks or the stones the ELL teacher used around her fire.
This activity was extremely cheap, easy to set up, and fun. Our entire team decided to try it and we all had a blast! You should give it a shot too!
Find this resource here: Camping- Sped Room Transformation.
The best part about this resource is that the main activities are editable, so you can add whatever task you want, from nonsense words to multiplications and science questions!
Catching Fireflies!
This activity is more fun with toy nets, but if you don’t have any, you can use the mats included.
Type your tasks in the boxes, print, laminate and cut, and have your students go catch fireflies! If they solve a task card, they drop it in the net. The person with the most cards, wins!
Roasting Marshmallows
Type any content into the marshmallows and have your students create “delicious” s’mores! Use with the included recording sheets, so you can keep track of their work.
Nature Walk
Add toy binoculars to this station for a fun touch!
Type your tasks in the boxes, print, laminate and cut. Place the cards at a station or around the room for a “real” nature walk! Have your students grab a pair of binoculars and go on a nature walk! If they find a task card, they have to solve the task, then they get to keep. Add backpacks to this activity so the students can feel like they are going on a real hike. They can also use them for storage purposes. The person with the most cards, wins!
Forest Friends
If you have students who are struggling with phonemic awareness skills due to poor or slowly developing oral language skills or just need an extra boost, this game is a perfect tool to add to your phonemic awareness instruction on a regular basis or to use as a station for this room transformation. The game is designed to assist students in understanding and being able to blend onset-rime to produce one-syllable words. It is a small group activity game, recommended for 2-4 players, making it perfect for a quick activity at the teacher’s table. Read more here: Forest Friends.
Going Fishing
This games makes for a multi-sensory way of practicing CVC words; however, you can use with any type of content you want! I included all the CVC words I used with my students, over 300 words in all for all vowels, and a blank mat that you can edit.
This game is part of a bigger resource. Read more about it here: RTI-CVC Words Fluency.
