Welcome to our “It’s a Sweet Life – Candy Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to the oh-so-fun sweets and treats! After all, what better way to get them to keep learning than to pick something they LOVE – sugar and sweets! For our first day, we introduced the theme of the week and studied the history of candy!
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 some upcycled carnival booths! And, 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
Almost every child is familiar – at least in some capacity – with the candy, sweets, and sugar. BUT, this week, we used those familiar goodies to bring in some great learning concepts!
Here are some great articles for some background information for your little ones (or you to brush up on!)
Once they’ve gotten the concept of what sugar and sweets are (and what we’re focusing on for the week), then it’s off to setting up the camp area – always a fun activity – and reading, writing, crafting, and experiments!
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 they’re incredibly crafty and creative, having some extra and opened-ended crafts would be great to keep them engaged. Otherwise, a prepared activity would work well!
If you’ve got any candy / sweet treat animals or souvenirs filling up your kid’s room, then bring them out to ‘enjoy’ Candy Week! We had a Candyland Backdrop that we used for a party a while back and brought it out for Candy Week 🙂
For our camp area, we decorated the space with a few Mini Cupcake Sticker Sheets, DIY Pool Noodle Lollipops, CandyLand Board Games, and other decorative candies!
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). Here are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Where Does Sugar Come From? | Science for Kids by SciShow Kids (3m)
- Candy Facts! – All About Chocolate, Lollipops, & More! | Nikki’s Wiki | Wiki for Kids at Cool School by Cool School (3m)
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!
There are tons of sweet snacks that you can make for an introductory day: Gummy Kits, DIY Rock Candy, Candy Dirt Cups, and More!
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. 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! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- How Sweet It Is (and Was): The History of Candy by Ruth Freeman Swain
- What Is the Story of Willy Wonka? By Steve Korte
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: SUGAR, SWEETS, CANDY
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!
- What is your favorite candy? What do you like about it? What about your least favorite?
- If you could invent any candy, what would it be? What would the wrapper look like and what would it taste like?
- If you could create a candy world, what would it look like? What would the houses and playgrounds look like?
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home learning fun 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 Candy Week days, Sweets & Treats Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
