This month in Preschool 2, the children have been interested in camping! We have many families in our program who have cottages, trailers or tents to camp in. We talked about what we do when we go camping. Some things were swimming, sleeping and playing. We worked together as a group to create a list of things we need for camping. This list included, pillows, blankets, food, water, marshmallows and bathing suits.
Once we began talking about camping, we the educators asked the children if they think we could set up a tent in our classroom? Many of them immediately said “Yes!” while others took a few seconds to think about it. After they thought about it they responded “we can’t have tents inside, they are for outside.” We asked them if they would be open to the idea of trying to set up a tent in our classroom. The children were very eager to try! We were able to borrow a tent from our Preschool 1 friends. The children watched as the educators laid out the tent, beginning to put it together. Some of the children even offered to help hold up parts of the tent. Once the tent was set up, we asked the children if we were finished? They let us know that we were not quite done.
We sat down in a small circle and talked about what we thought was missing. A couple children said “marshmallows” which then had others start saying “we need a campfire to cook the marshmallows!” Luckily, there was a campfire play set available for us to use. The children helped the educators set up the campfire using the sticks and flames provided. They even asked if we could use blocks from block centre as “logs” to sit on!
Once we had everything done, the children were able to explore the tent and campfire during free play. We heard many conversations about s’mores, sleeping (with pillows and blankets, and wild life in the “forest.” The children took turns “roasting” marshmallows and making s’mores at the campfire.
This experience allowed the children to bring in their real-life experiences and help us set up our dramatic play area. The children were able to demonstrate their team building, social, communication, fine & gross motor skills during this play.
