Welcome to our “Mythical Creature Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun themed activities all themed to oh-so-fascinating Mythical Creatures – Dragons, Unicorns, Mermaids, and More! For our first day, we learned about some of our favorite mythical creatures, introduced a few more, and looked into some fascinating origins!!
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 with upcycled fantastical decorations! 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
Mythical and magical creatures have long since captured the imagination of so many of us – especially children! So, why not take their natural interests and keep them learning all with engaging activities and themed books, videos, & more!
For this week, we focused on a few of our favorite mythical creatures – dragons, unicorns, mermaids, and krakens! Not only did we learn about these creatures but also what real life animals they may have been based upon as well as some history behind the myths and stories!
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!
If you’ve got any mythical creatures filling up your kiddo’s room, then bring them out to ‘enjoy’ mythical creature week! Creating a mythical creature scene with some construction paper, colored pictures, and some upcycled wall trees would also make an excellent addition to the camp/learning area AND serve as a great backdrop for imaginative play!
Once we were done decorating, we passed out some field journals and let them take notes on some ‘magical creatures’ they found in the camp area. 🙂 We also encouraged them to use the journal pages to take notes on any mythical or magical creatures they learned about throughout the day!
WHAT TO WATCH
- 5 Mythical Creatures That REALLY Existed | 5 FACTS by Colossal Cranium (4m)
- 7 Mythical Creatures That Existed in Real Life by 4 Ever Green (12m)
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:
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 picked up some Sparkling Mythical Creature Cookies and let the kids arrange them with some other healthier snacks to create their own mythical scene!
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!
- National Geographic Kids – Mythical Beasts by Stephani Warren Drimmer. This is a great book with pictures and descriptions of both mythical beasts and the creatures that may have inspired them.
- DK Mythical Beasts by Andrea Mills. This is also a great book with pictures and descriptions. There are a few more pages than the National Geographic one and it goes through a few more mythical beasts.
- The Book of Mythical Beasts & Magical Creatures by Stephen Krensky. This is an excellent book filled with tons of information and pictures. This one is nice as it includes short snippets on what cultures and myths these creatures are found.
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: MYTHICAL, MAGICAL, CREATURE
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 any magical creature as your friend, which one would it be and why?
CREATE & CRAFT
We typically don’t have a craft of the day on our introductory day (since decorating the camp area takes up quite a chunk of the day while also encouraging their creativity. BUT, we saw these clay kits and couldn’t resist! While our kids followed the pictures, you could definitely mix and match the colors or bring in a few of your own!
FIELD JOURNAL PAGES
Feel free to use these images for your own personal use OR link back to this post to share. The first two images are in color but you could also print out the B&W versions on cardstock or vintage styled paper!
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 Dragon, Fairy, Mermaid, Unicorn, or Fantasy Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
