Test Prep Campout – Classroom Transformation

The day finally came for our TEST prep campout and it could not have gone better! The tents were set up and it was time to review what we had learned from the year!

Setting the stage is so important. My students loved the setup and it was pretty easy to make happen. We used the raft from (BEST Beginning of Year Ever). I used a tent that we had and some star lights to hang up around the room.

Below I’ll go through some of the 8 stations! I took grades on 5 of them and groups had bags they packed to take around and make sure they had all their supplies. It lasted over 3 hours for us and took up most of our day. While some groups finished, they were reading for our book clubs if they had any extra time.

To be honest, we didn’t even do the camping exercises. We just didn’t have time. We stopped after every station and did a song from MooseTube on GoNoodle for a fun camping brain break and it worked perfect. Make it work for your classroom!

Students had to color the smores page by part of speech. They ate some smores trail mix as well (teddy Grahams, chocolate chips, and marshmallows) This obviously was a favorite station!

Focusing and eating, what a combination!

They had to pack a backpack with figurative language supplies and it spelled out a pun “Oh man, that camping trip was in tents.” They thought that was hilarious and an easy way for me to check as well!

This station proved to be a little difficult but many groups worked hard and I was proud of them sticking with it. Some supplies always came up as challenging so I helped with those. You can see a student wearing my brownie vest as our VIP vest it rotated each station!

At the Catching Lightning Bugs station, they sorted elements of stories:

1st, 2nd, 3rd person
vocab words/context clues eg. “has a word with definition directly after”
figurative language “contains a simile” “contains an idiom”
genres
and even more…

If sorted correctly the bugs had number patterns they recorded. I highlighted the italic words to make it easier for them to find. I thought this would be easier than it was! I definitely will incorporate that more into future years. Great compare and contrast skills!

Fishing for Fragments – they had to throw back fragments, keep sentences, and pass run on sentences to the captain. Using a raft, life jacket, and oars made it SO EASY AND FUN!

In the 2 tents, they did an analyzing poetry page and a listening center over a nonfiction camping story, “The Camping Trip That Changed America.” They had rigorous test like questions based on evidence over it as well.

This elementary test prep resource was so invaluable and could be used in the classroom over a week or more! Shhh….if you download the preview on TPT you’ll get one of the centers free…

If you need more test prep ideas check out these FREE ones!