Bulletin Boards with that cute red/white checker pattern fabric...you could write your rules, ets on paper plates, and staple them onto the board in different places and title the board "Third Grade is full of Happy Campers" You could write their names on the paper plates.
OR you could do subjects (if you're self-contained) and write something for each subject on the plates. You could add napkins and plastic cups with plastic utensils in the cups. (I actually did this one year, and it's really cute!)
Camping titles/ideas for Bulletin Boards
Happy Campers in Room ____
Mrs.____'s Happy Campers
Camped Out in the Reading Corner
Bird's Eye View of Math (Math facts, etc)
Pack your Backpack
Ready, Set, HIKE...climb into a good book!
Campfire Tales (post stories that the kids have written)
You might have to find graphics on the internet
or
Pictures from a clipart book that has cute camping-type pictures. I know Carson-Dellosa (sp?) has some cute ones....
Just plaster the room with tons of pictures about camping.
Just the other day at Hobby Lobby I saw red/white checked tablecloth material, but it also had black ants scattered on the cloth. I thought at the time it would make a fun camping/picnic bulletin board! You could probably create something similar with plastic red/white checked table cloth and plastic ants or construction paper ants.
I love hiking, so I'd probably do something like "Hike into a good book!" and have construction paper hiking boots for each student. They would add their name and a favorite book recommendation to the boot.
Camping must include 'smores, so maybe you could do something with " 'Smore good work..." and then make 'smore decorations.
Somewhere I came across pictures of a teacher's classroom who used this theme. If I can find the site again, I'll post it. HERE'S THE SITE www.smithsroom.com. Click on "Room Tour."
What about including a bug repellant slogan/theme for your behavior/rules bulleting board. "Things that really BUG Us!" or "Off, the instant repellant for bad behavior" Need some help w/ the slogans for this one.
Also, you could use small sleeping bags (toddler size might be perfect, not too big to spread out) in your reading center. Maybe use a small tent or create a tent feel w/ inexpensive fabric for your writing or reading corner.
Starry night scene above a camp fire to post classroom jobs.
Good luck.
Love the theme,
April
Hi, I am going to call my classroom Camp Learn-a-Lotta! I think I found that Idea in the archives. I want to have a small tent, campfire, etc in the reading corner. I plan on using some artificial christmas trees to create a woodsy feel.
Love the idea of using artificial christmas trees! What about the pine car scents (the ones that you hang in your car, etc.) to create the woodsy scent???
I will also be teaching thrid grade for the first time!! A camping theme would be great. I have never seen a classroom decorated in camping decor. Although, I think it would be great for the students to have a small tent in the room at a reading center. The tent would give the students a place to relax and read. Maybe you could paint some murals on the walls with a campsite, mountians, or even a lake. Dressing cabinets and doors up with leaves, sticks or any type of bush that looks like it would be near a cmap site.
Besides the room tour, check out my units page for back to school for more camping ideas. This will be my 4th year using the camping theme and I still LOVE it! I'm adding a few more things for this coming year and hope to have updated pics in a few weeks. http://www.smithsroom.com
I have several posters from Mo. Dept of Conservation that I will use in my classroom too. You might check with your state's dept. of conservation for free materials such as posters. I have some with the different seasons, trees, animals, fish, etc. All was free! Even got some habitat cards, animals cards to laminate. I'll probably use those in a science center.
I teach 3rd grade and did the camping theme last year. I loved it. I suspended four green tarps shaped like tents from the ceiling over each of my groups. I had a 3D tree in my room with a tent for the reading area beside it. I had two tables with tree stump benches for my center locations. On my windows I painted the names of 4 reading groups, which were forest animals. My word wall had travel trailers each with a letter of the alphabet on it. My AR bullentin board were jeeps traveling up a mountain scene with bears and construction signs that were labeled wtih a certain amount of points on each. My students climbed the mountain by accumlating points until they reached the summit. I have an office attached to my room that I decorated like the outside of a log lodge office. We had lots of fun learning last year.
My uncle has a sawmill and has several large cypress stumps. I am going to take one and put rollers on the bottom and plexiglass on the top for a table in my reading center. I am debating on what types of seats to have, large pillows with removable cushions or tree stumps. I think the large cushions would be more practical. I am using the Northwoods themed items which features a moose, bear, racoon etc.
I bought kids camping chairs for $5 at the Christmas Tree Shops. I only bought a few but I am sure you can find them (and cheaper) now that the summer is ending. They are very comfortable!
We do a camping theme every year. Our beginning bulletin board 2 years ago was terrific. We got the red and white checked tablecloth (plastic), cut out "marshmellows" in white construction paper, cut out brown "graham crackers", and used Hershey wrappers. Our title was "We're Ready for S'More Learning" We put important field trips and units on the marshmellows and the graham crackers. We got a lot of compliments on it!! Hope this helps!!
Does anyone have pictures of all these great camp themed classrooms? I am going to do the camping theme in my class this year. I checked out the website listed above but I would love to see more pictures! Thanks!
All of these camping theme ideas are great! Especially since my last trip of the summer, Labor Day Weekend, I will be camping in the Pocono Mountains. That will lee-way into our first writing lesson about summer memories, and I can bring in pictures and can speak first-hand about the experience that will be so fresh in my mind. I teach 3rd grade in NJ, and some kids know "the outdoors" to be merely their own backyards at home and nothing more, so this will be an exciting experience and give an "outdoorsy" feel to the otherwise typical classroom... can't wait to go into school tomorrow and start decorating away! (Also a GREAT way to make use for an old, ripped, or kiddie tent that is no longer needed at home! Kids will LOVE crawling in to read.... to prevent a crowd in the tent, maybe only students of the week should get the privelege... and rotate?) Again, THANK YOU to everyone!!!
I used the camping theme one time and found lots of stuff called Arctic North Woods bulletin board set, etc.
I also put in "puffy" like letters across the top of my chalk board "S'more learning going on here."
I too will be teaching 3rd for the first time. After years in first grade I needed a new theme (away from the teddy bears) since I will have some returning students. My new room is a portable (the trailers) and to get excited, I am calling the new room, "the cabins". With all these great camping ideas, I am ready to decorate. Thanks for your help!
I am doing a camping theme in my 3rd grade classroom this year. I want to set up a board with camp assistants. I need ideas for jobs, and camp names for those jobs. For example: Camp Director - job is to keep us on time. This is just a quick idea. Do any of you have any really good ideas. I'm blank.
Trees look really cool! Use carpet tubing. (I got them for free from a carpet store). Cut the ends off lunch bags and slip them over the tubing and crunch them down a little. Cover the whole tube and add cut out leaves. My classroom is full of them. It looks neat!
Wow! Everyone has such great ideas! I am also doing a camping theme for next school year. My best friend and I have come up with some additional ideas-ice chest for goodie chest, picnic basket to hold daily snacks, or special books for the week, sticks with laquered marshmallows for pointers to read the room, take a plastic planter pot, turn it upside down and attach thin chunks of wood so it looks like a campfire, using crunched brown paper bags, create mountains as a backdrop to a bulletin board, create inexpensive signs by burning words into thin slices of a stump, and attach real pine cones to any man made trees so they look more realistic. A green carpet also adds to the woodsy feel and gives you something to attach the tent to if needed. Also, if you have windows in your room, have the kids paint HUGE redwoods on the windows and then they can add owls and other wildlife to the windows as the year progresses. I did the window painting when I did a rainforest theme, and the sun shining through the different colors of paint on the windows really had a calming effect on the room-it made the room look like you were stepping into a different world (I used tempra paint and washed off with water at the end of the year).
I have decided to do a camping/picnic theme in my classroom. However, I want to incorporate the school-wide theme too, which is "All aboard." Any ideas??
I'm currently using the camping theme in my second grade classroom this year. For my main bulletin board, I covered it with black butcher paper and bought a wooden trim. I printed out a campfire and put the students' names on yellow stars. For the rules, I titled the board "Campground Rules". We use a computer program called Successmaker and the students record their scores on a chart on a bulletin board I titled "Successmaker Scouts". My science bulletin board says "Learning S'more Science" and my math bulletin board says "Hiking the Math Trail". Students' work will be displayed on a bulletin board titled "Scouting Great Work". The helpers are called "Troop Leaders". I also had a large tree Carson Delosa decoration I put on the door. DJ Inkers also sells a woodland themed bulletin board set which I also purchased. I also bought a green rug for my library center. A tent would also be a great idea for the library center. My behavior chart is labeled "Looking out for Great Behavior" with the two o's in look as binoculars. We are also doing a binoculars arts and crafts project out of toilet paper rolls. I hope this helps!
These ideas are awesome!!! I teach 1st grade and wanted to change some things up next year. My husband is a Game Warden so I wanted to go toward the forest animals theme. I love the camping and forest animals theme. This will be perfect for next year. Thank you so much for the great ideas.
> 
07-10-2006, 11:24 AM
