Welcome to our “Awesome Amphibians Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to amphibians: frogs, salamanders, newts, & more! For our first day, we learned about what an amphibian is and how it may differ from reptiles or other animals.
Like most of our at home camp weeks, we kicked off the week by easing into the topic. We started off with setting up the camp area by creating our very own make-believe amphibian habitat. Like all days, we added in some interesting books and some writing / storytelling prompts to keep them learning! Read on to check out the fun!
INTRO
Your little ones have most likely seen or heard about frogs and maybe even some other amphibians, but can they tell the difference between an amphibian or a reptile? Since the focus of our week was amphibians, we devoted our first day to learning all about what an amphibian is. We also learned how to spot the differences with other creatures who may live near or may be mistaken as amphibians!
If you need some inspiration, this webpage by www.ducksters.com has a great, kid-friendly intro on Amphibians: Amphibians!
DECORATE THE CAMP AREA
Decorating the ‘Camp Area’ or the room / area of your house where you’ll have most of your activities is a great way to get the kids excited about the theme of the week!
For our camp area decoration, we created a ‘make believe’ pond by using a cardboard box and laying some blue tissue paper. Throughout the week, we’d add some of the paper or craft amphibians we created to fill it out!
We also borrowed a few stickers from some of the sticker sheets from frog day: Life Cycle Sticker Assortment Sheet – to make some of the Lili pads. Knowing we had to save the frog life cycle sticker sheet for our frog day, we decided to also give the kiddos a ‘laboratory’ sticker scene which also served as some decorations once completed (see the frog life cycle bulletin at the top 😉 ).
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Amphibians for Kids | What is an amphibian? Learn the characteristics of amphibians by Learn Bright (9m)
- All About Amphibians: Tadpoles, Frogs, and Salamanders – Freeschool by Freeschool (2m)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we brought out one of our favorite molds (pulled from our Harry Potter collection).. We made some chocolate frogs using our Frog Harry Potter Chocolate Mold! The mold is pretty basic but works well with store bought chocolate melts 😉
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned!
- Amphibians (A True Book: Animal Kingdom) A True Book: Animal Kingdom by Christine Taylor-Butler
- Smart Kids Reptiles and Amphibians: with more than 30 stickers by Roger Piddy
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: AMPHIBIAN, REPTILE, CLASSIFICATION
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- If you could have a reptile or an amphibian as a pet, which would you choose? Why?
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home camp article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Animal-Themed Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
