Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Campsite activities for preschoolers: Fairy Houses

I found during our last trip that there were a number of occasions that required my attentions to be somewhere other than directly on the kids, while cooking or preparing the backpack for the days adventures. Of course I try to keep the time spent on these administrative duties to a minimum, but what do you do with the little ones to keep them occupied at the campsite?

Build a Fairy House

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On this trip I got the kids searching the campsite for a perfect fairy house location. I then sent them off collecting twigs, moss, rocks, and leaves. I instructed them to take stuff from the ground, no picking off of live plants! The collection was placed at the preferred location and dad helped with the actual structure when he had a minute.

This activity turned out to be a running theme for the weekend (my sister, who is studying to be a teacher, tells me this is a good example of project based learning). When we were on a hike berries from the ash berries became fairy food and salal leaves were turned into fairy guardians.

A big hit (and excellent post-beach, pre-dinner time occupier) was decorating the day’s collection of rocks, shells and driftwood. I brought some paints, brushes and just let them go at it. In case you didn’t know, painted shells make excellent fairy beds :)

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2 comments:

  1. Lulu would ADORE making a fairy house... could we do it on one of our camping trips too?

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  2. Absolutely...i'll bring the paint box...I was also thinking of making boats...maybe fairy boats?

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