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 this day, we learned all about the elusive loch ness monster!!! Read on to check out a fun filled day of learning, reading, crafts, and activities all themed to the beloved Nessie the Loch Ness Monster!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day is having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Some kids may or not be familiar with this mythical creature – the loch ness monster! If you need a bit of an intro, check out this article from kids.britannica.com: Loch Ness Monster. This is a great site with kid-friendly facts, images, and related content! It’s a perfect brief intro for your little ones!
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:
- Does the Loch Ness Monster Exist? | COLOSSAL MYSTERIES by Colossal Mysteries (4m)
- The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster Explained by WatchMojo (6m)
- Unlocking the Mystery of Loch Ness | Monstrum by Storied (17m)
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 had a sugary treat complete with Nessie (err, a Nessie Spoon, that is). We filled up some blue mugs with berry blue jello and added in our Nessie spoon! It was super cute 🙂
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!
The first two are books we brought back from our intro day and revisited just the page on the loch ness monster in each book. The last one is part of the What Is Series & perfect for kids who love reading non-fiction!
- DK Mythical Beasts by Andrea Mills. This is also a great book with pictures and descriptions on several mythical creatures. There’s a page here about Loch Ness as well.
- The Book of Mythical Beasts & Magical Creatures by Stephen Krensky. This is an excellent book filled with tons of information and pictures. There’s a page in here about loch ness as well.
- What Do We Know About the Loch Ness Monster?: By Steve Korte. This is part of the Who Is, Where Is, What Is series. It’s an informative chapter book – geared toward slightly older children but well worth a read!
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: MYTH, LOCH NESS, LAKE, SEA 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 (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- If Nessie appeared to you one day, what would you do? How would you introduce yourself?
- If Nessie could talk to you and tell you how she stayed hidden all these years, what do you think she would say?
- Imagine you’re a Loch Ness monster, describe where you live and how you ‘hide out’ from the human world!
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
For our crafts of the day, we gave them a few options that would help them enhance their pretend play or add in some of what they learned:
- Origami Loch Ness Monster | Step by step origami Nessy (Loch Ness Monster) | MS Art and Craft by MS Art and Craft
- Printable Loch Ness Monster Craft by learncreatelove.com
- Loch Ness Creature by yoursocreative.com
- Loch Ness Monster Craft by activityvillage.co.uk
- Nessie Stick Puppet by www.bakerross.co.uk
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
Our science activity of the day was pretty open-ended: Design a method to search for the Nessie. We gave our kiddos some paper, craft supplies, and other upcycles and asked them to design a prototype of a vehicle that could explore the lake or a tool that could find Nessie. We asked them to incorporate any of the things they’ve learned throughout the day that would help them on their search!
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 Mythical Creature Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
