Help with Planning for a "Zoo" Theme Camp

[twinrachel2]

Hello everyone!

This year our camp theme is "The Zoo". We have already decided to decorate each cabin as a different exhibit in the zoo. Does anyone have any ideas for activities we can do during camp? Thanks!

[annknee]

We had several Zoo themed units at camp last year for both day and resident camp and all of the campers spent a night at the Zoo. They also got a reptile man in to show off the reptiles - I wasnt directly involved with the groups so dont really know what they did, but I did do several art sessions with them. We did paper bag puppets with Zoo animals and also bead lizards/animals. Another art related project that we did was paper mache penguins and pigs which worked quite well if you remembered to bring them in out of the rain!!

If you have drama-y campers then how about getting them to make animal masks and then doing something Lion-Kingesque.

For an activity with large numbers of people (or smaller ones would work as well) you could tell them that they have discovered a new type of animal to go in the Zoo, leave pointers around camp such as "It has green eyes" "it has 4 legs" "it has red stripes" and get each cabin/unit to create what it, give it a name etc

[triplethreat]

Once we took a whole bunch of stuffed animals and hid them all over camp. Then we had a "safari relay" where each team sent out a pair of kids at a time and they had to find an animal and bring back a tag with the animal's name. The first team to find all of the animals won. It was really fun!

[prettysocks]

I don't know what age group you're aiming for.. but Zoo is an awesome theme. Almost ANYTHING can be adapted so that it's animal theme...

Lots of animal crafts, a few songs (younger site)
http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/jungle.html

Animal crafts, colouring pages (again, mostly younger)
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/animals/

Animal crafts galore, lots for older kids
http://familycrafts.about.com/od/zoowildanimals/

Other ideas..
- Animal pinatas
- Animal masks
- Animal origami (good for older kids)

As for games.... You can pretty much turn anything into an animal game.. For example, "tag", can be the BEAR is "it" and you are all FISH that he wants to eat!

Good luck! Let us know what kinds of activities you end up using!

[Smudge]

You could play games like Chuck the Chicken and sharks and minows.