Camping Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
In case you hadn’t heard, we joined in on a summer reading program earlier this summer that my good friend Alison created for her kiddos. We started the summer off with an ice cream theme, and week two brought about all things CAMPING!
This was such a great theme because there were so many different directions it could be taken in. We did activities that were based on everything from marshmallows and s’mores, to bears, to frogs and ponds, to bugs! A lot can happen while camping. ;)
Since these activities were for a summer READING program, I have to share some of the fun books we read to inspire our learning and playing. I checked out a few from our local library, purchased a few new, and dug up a few that we already had.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links which means I would earn a small commission if you were to purchase through those links. All opinions are my own, and I only link to products that I truly recommend.
Backyard Bugs
Bugs Galore
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Scare a Bear
Five Green & Speckled Frogs
Little Green Frog
Curious George Goes Camping
Oliver & Hope’s Adventure Under the Stars
One of our favorite ways to learn and play with each of these summer themes has been by using our learning journal. It’s been so fun creating themed activity pages for Kade (4) and he always enjoys doing them. For many of the other themes, I created separate posts for just the themed journal activities. You can find those posts here:
4th of July-Themed Journal Activities
Zoo-Themed Journal Activities
Ocean-Themed Journal Activities
Watermelon-Themed Journal Activities
Dinosaur-Themed Journal Activities
For this theme, I’m just bundling them in with the rest of our camping-themed activities but wanted to still show each one and share some details about how we used it.
An active learning journal is a great place to practice pre-writing skills! This one was inspired by Theresa, who I mentioned earlier (again- you can find her blog here). I drew some pine trees and made the “stumps” with dashed lines in the shape of the uppercase letter “T” to be traced. We talked about how the word trees begins with the letter “T” and that this is how you write the letter. We’ve been working on correct pencil grip a lot this summer and it’s been a slow process. I’m working on finding that balance between always correcting it so that bad habits don’t form, and sometimes just letting it go so that he’s not feeling too much pressure/always being corrected.
For this activity, I drew some marshmallows on a stick to represent a number line, and turned it into a “feed the bears” situation. We had some teddy grahams in the pantry so I wrote some simple subtraction problems next to each “number line” and had Kade (4) use the teddy grahams to cover (eat) the correct number of marshmallows off of each stick.
This was his first experience with subtraction so I was introducing the “minus” symbol and how it means to “take away.” We talked about how the first number is how many you’re starting with and the second number is how many you’re taking away. The best part, of course, was snacking along the way. ;)
So many ways to play with this page! I set out a little frog figure and had Kade hop his frog around to different letters and letter sounds that I called out- “Have your frog hop to the lily pad with the letter that makes the ‘sss’ sound.” I, then, had him hop on each lily pad and tell me the letter names as he hopped along. You could do all letter identification, only letter sounds, or a combination of both (like we did). For an added challenge, you could have kiddos hop to a letter and then tell you a word that starts with that letter! For younger kiddos, you could make each lily pad a different color, or put shapes on them and have them name the colors and/or shapes as they hop.
If you wanted to turn this into a gross motor activity, make big lily pads out of green construction paper and have them be the hopping frogs!
This page was so fun to make although I will say that drawing a mason jar was harder than I expected. I wrote a combination of letters and numbers on these little fireflies and chose to have Kade (4) “light up” only the letters using a yellow do-a-dot marker. You could also write uppercase (or lowercase letters) on the fireflies, and then write the opposite out on yellow dot stickers- they would then place the stickers on the matching letters! Another fun way to light them up could be to dip a fingertip in washable yellow paint. :)
Here is another simple pre-writing activity that just involved tracing a curvy path to help a lost camper find his way back to his tent. I find it funny that he’s lost, but still happy. :)
As inspiration for this activity, we read a sweet book called Oliver & Hope’s Adventure Under the Stars which was such a cute story about some friends going camping. They use their imaginations to turn shadows in the dark into things like fire-breathing dragons, and animals in circus tents. The story is full of adventure, friendship, and imagination!
After reading, Kade worked on this journal activity where he identified the number on each tent, and then counted out the matching number of star stickers to place in the night sky above each one. Peeling stickers is always a great way to work on fine motor skills which was an added bonus to the number recognition and counting practice!
For this activity, I drew up a few camping related items (campfires, marshmallows on a stick, and some pine trees) in different sizes and lengths. I wrote a question above each one and had Kade circle his response. This was a great way to get a writing utensil in his hand, while also thinking and learning about measurement terms such as taller, larger, and smallest.
This may have been one of our favorites of the week! Kade, of course, loved snacking on the marshmallows but also had a lot of fun building with the toothpicks! I had written out a few uppercase letters that only require straight lines on some small pieces of paper (you could use index cards- which is what I wanted to use but couldn’t find at the time). I provided toothpicks and mini marshmallows and we worked together to find ways to build each letter. I also decided to include a few shapes (square, triangle, and rectangle) which we worked on after completing all the letters.
Ok this was also a favorite! We read Curious George Goes Camping, and then painted with marshmallows. I stuck wooden craft sticks in the marshmallows as handles and we used red, yellow, and orange paint for a campfire vibe. Kade (4) painted his name, and Tatum (2) painted a campfire that I drew (hashtag not an artist). The kids loved the way the marshmallow glided the paint along their paper and they also smelled delicious- such a great sensory experience and their paintings turned out so cute!
I made these DIY little shape s’mores by cutting out squares of cardboard from a box we had kicking around, and then cut some shapes out of white card stock. I laminated the white shapes, cut them out, and traced them with black sharpie on each cardboard square. I placed velcro on both the front of the cardboard squares, and backs of the white shapes so that they could be matched and stuck to one another. The white shapes represented the marshmallows on the graham crackers (the cardboard squares). This activity was meant for Tatum at age 2.
Here’s another fun way to enjoy a camping theme- set up a tent! We popped our teepee (ours was from Target a few years ago- this one is similar!) up in the corner of our playroom and added a cozy rug and some pillows, a basket of camping-themed books, a basket of forest animals, and a felt campfire dramatic play set (we got this from Target a few years ago, too, but linking one I found that’s similar HERE). The kids loved cozy-ing up in here with their stuffed friends and a good book!
FROGS! I felt it was only right to include a little pond/frog fun in with the camping theme, too. We threw some frogs in our water table (ours is discontinued- that one is a similar style) with some large vase filler gems, scoops, cups, bowls, etc. I also tossed in some of our plastic flies so the kiddos could pretend to feed the frogs if they wanted to. Water table is always a hit, especially on a hot day, and especially when you throw random toys in to switch things up!
I did this activity with Kade when he was younger than Tatum, along with some other frog-themed activities that you can find in a post here!
Continuing with frogs, here is a simple counting activity I set up for Tatum (2). I had made these lily pads out of some craft foam a few years ago when I originally did a frog theme with Kade. I wrote numbers on them and Tatum and I worked together to count out the correct number of frog friends for each lily pad. We kept things very simple and only did 1-3 but make as many as you want!
Had to include these little cuties. We love the 5 Green and Speckled Frogs book/song and I based our whole frog theme on it originally back in the day for Kade- check out this post to read more detail on how we used it and how I made it (back when I only had one child- HA)!
Another oldie but goodie. I had to include some bug fun too because I had some ideas up my sleeve and I feel like camping and bugs for sure go hand-in-hand. I shared a post of Kade doing this activity a couple years ago on Instagram- you can see the post here. He’s a couple years older and still enjoyed it just as much- as did Tatum. Kinetic sand is just the best- if you don’t have some, it’s a must! These plastic bugs were perfect in there and the kiddos had so much fun burying and finding them in the sand.
Here is a great little fine motor and color sorting activity! To set it up, I used a shallow baking pan but you could use a clear storage bin, too. I put the bugs in, made some obstacles with painters’ tape, and provided some colored bowls and fine motor tweezers/grabbers. Kade used the grabbers and Tatum opted to just use her hands but then we focused more on the color sorting. :) These color sorting bugs have been awesome for learning and playing with!
I actually made this activity years ago when I was teaching preschool and had forgotten about it until coming across it recently. I had cut leaves out of green paper, wrote numbers 1-10 on them with black sharpie, and then laminated them. I added small velcro dots to each leaf, and made/cut out/laminated little lady bugs with corresponding dots on their backs for each leaf. They are so darn cute but can you tell these were the days when I did not have any kids of my own? ;)
I used this for Kade (4) - he counted the lady bug dots and then attached them to the correct numbered leaf using the velcro dots.
Another one I created back when I had a lot more time. ;) Check out this post with bug activities for toddlers to read about this puzzle and how I made it (did a bug theme with Kade around the same time we did the frog theme).
Did this post make you want to go camping? Or glad that you are sleeping in a bed tonight and not out with the bugs under the stars? ;) Maybe a little of both? Anyway- I hope you found something that your little ones can enjoy learning and playing with! If you liked these themed activities, be sure to check out our other themed activity posts here:
Ice Cream Activities
4th of July Activities
Zoo Activities
Ocean Activities
Watermelon Activities
Dinosaur Activities
Bug Activities
Frog Activities
Apple Activities
Also don’t forget to PIN your favorite activities and tag us on social media if you end up trying them out!
