Overnight Camps at the ARNOT FOREST
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The Elements

Ideas on how to incorporate this theme in your week: 

Focus on one element each day and learn a skill/play a game/hear a story for each. Combine all the elements, and everything your flock has learned about them, on the last day for an epic challenge or quest 

Song Suggestions (those with recordings are linked below by element)

    • Earth My Body 
    • The Wind Song
    • I Thank the Earth 
    • Wood, Stone, Feather, and Bone 
    • I am a Tumbling Stone 
    • Burn Fire Burn 
    • The River is Flowing

Songs

I Thank The Earth
Wood, Stone, Feather and Bone

Earth Theme

Games and Activities

  • Play with clay
  • Make rock paint 
  • Tell stories/play games/talk about animals that live in the Earth (worms, groundhogs, moles, voles, chipmunks, etc.)
  • Play a game where campers are an animal that lives in the Earth and instructors are that animal’s predator. Campers have to escape the predator by running between “holes.” Your flock can create several “holes” by making a circle with sticks or other materials
  • Use a container to hold animals from the Earth that your flock finds, like worms, toads, etc. (terrarium) Make sure to let all of the animals go
  • Start the day with a mystery object from the Earth. Campers could feel it with their eyes closed or through a bag and have to guess what it is
  • Some questions you could ask: 
    1. What is the Earth made of? 
    2. What does the Earth feel, smell, taste, sound, look like?

Songs

I am a Tumbling Stone

Water Theme

Games and Activities

  • Creek play 
    1. Make boats using natural materials 
    2. Look for crawfish, frogs, etc. (Could use a container to hold the animals your flock finds (aquarium). Make sure to let them go at the end of creek play) 
    3. Creek walks up and downstream 
    4. Rock paint (mentioned above as well) 
  • Tell stories/play games/talk about animals that live in/near water (crawfish, fish, frogs, beavers, river otters, etc.)
  • Otter Steals Fish game 
    1. One person is the heron and has to guard their fish (bandana ball) from the others, who are pretending to be otters 
    2. Create a perimeter around the heron and their fish 
    3. The otters must go inside this perimeter and grab the bandana ball without getting tagged by the heron 
    4. If tagged, the otters have to go back outside of the circle and try again

      Play Keeper of the Keys but with a spray bottle. When the keeper hears someone, instead of pointing they spray them with a spray bottle (this is especially fun on really hot days!)
  • Some questions you could ask:
    What is water made of?
    What does the water feel, smell, taste, sound, look like?
    Can water change form? 

Songs

Burn Fire Burn
The Fire and the Sun

Fire Theme

Games and Activities

  • Ideas for Fire: 
    • Introduce fire safety rules to your flock 
    • Firewood collecting games/challenges 
      1. Separate into 3 groups, each collecting a different size of firewood (wispies, pencils and markers). Great way to introduce firewood collecting to flock 
      2. Campers versus instructors to see who can collect the most firewood 
      3. Campers could pretend that they’re an animal collecting sticks for their home (squirrels, birds, beavers, etc.) 
    • Show/discuss different ways to light a fire (matches, friction kits, hand drill, flint and steel) 
    • Cook over the fire 
    • Use charcoal from the fire to make charcoal paint 
    • Some questions you could ask:
      1. What do we use fire for? 
      2. What does fire need? 
      3. What is fire’s relationship to water? 

Songs

The Wind Song

AIR Theme

Games and Activities

  • Could be a good element to introduce flock name and talk about that bird in more detail 
  • Connect “air” to weather 
  • Work together to make a “thunderstorm” by clapping hands, stomping feet, snapping fingers, etc (this is a good energy break!) 
  • Play the Westwind Blows: 
  • Need to play this game in an area where there are trees close together and the ground is clear of things that could trip people 
  • Everyone stands at a tree but one person is in the middle 
  • The person in the middle says “the westwind blows for anyone who loves river otters” (for example) 
  • Everyone who loves river otters (or agrees with what the person in the middle says) must find a new tree
  • The person who was in the middle tries to make it to an empty tree before someone else does. The person without a tree is the next one in the middle   
  • Some questions you could ask:
  • What is air made of? 
  • What does air feel, smell, taste, sound, look like? 
  • Does fire need air?