Pretend To Campout: How To Make A Pretend Campfire and Paper Marshmallows

Posted Feb 17, 09 -Filed Under children's activities (recycled materials), imaginative play, reuse bags, brown paper, reuse paper, use for natural stuff: vines, sticks... 

roasting pretend marshmallows

Believe it or not, children can have fun without watching TV. Take out some sleeping bags and let the kids pretend to camp out in the middle of your living room. They will enjoy building this imaginary campfire and pretending to roast marshmallows. Later they may tell each other stories, pretend to hear nocturnal animals lurking about, and imagine they are falling asleep under the stars.

pretend camp fire
How to make a pretend campfire:
Gather enough rocks to make the fire ring. Clean them off before bringing inside. We ripped up a brown paper bag and then twisted the pieces to look like firewood. You could use real twigs and sticks but paper is cleaner. We used scrap pieces of felt for the flames. To make the flames, the kids and I cut up yellow felt scraps (you could use a mix of colors) so that they were a bit like irregular triangles. Then we pulled at the edges to soften the look. Arrange the rocks in a circle and build your fire.

How to make pretend marshmallows:
You will need one-sided office paper, a stick about 2 or so feet long and a little white glue or clear tape.

MYO marshmallow step 1
Take a piece of one-sided office paper. One-sided paper means that only one side is blank. Why use a new sheet of paper when you can reuse another?
Fold the paper in half long ways. You should have the printed on side hidden on the inside.

MYO marshmallow step 2
Fold in half again.

MYO marshmallow step 3

MYO marshmallow step 4
Roll the resulting strip of paper around the stick.

MYO marshmallow step 6
Fold another piece of paper as before. Then add a little glue to this new piece before adding.
Add more layers (strips of paper) until the marshmallow is the size you want it to be. You will want to save the piece of paper with the least amount of stuff on the other side to allow for the whitest marshmallow. Use a piece of clear tape or carefully glue the end of the strip in place. If you choose to glue instead of tape, you will need to put something on top of it to hold it in place while the glue dries.
For a roasted look, be creative. We used watercolors and a sponge to apply paint around the edges.

campfire for girls and dolls

Here are some snapshots. These clever girls inspired me to do this post. They came up with the marshmallow idea.  They used shorter sticks for their dolls to use. The sticks were held on with elastic bands.

Comments

4 Responses to “Pretend To Campout: How To Make A Pretend Campfire and Paper Marshmallows”

  1. Amy on April 21st, 2009 6:29 am

    This is so clever. I am constantly amazed and inspired!! :)

  2. Denise on August 22nd, 2009 4:28 am

    This is excellent, I am a Rainbow Guider and the girls loved it, we sang campfire songs.(5 – 7 Yrs old), and then had hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows.

  3. vanessa on November 23rd, 2009 3:54 pm

    I love this idea so much!! My daughter is always pretending her closet is a fireplace-I think she would get a kick out of a pretend campfire. Thanks for sharing this!

  4. Cindy on March 23rd, 2010 12:20 pm

    This is a great idea! I’ll pass this on to our customers. As well, I’m going to pass it on to my sister-in-law who leads her son’s Beavers group.

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