Nature Walks

• Go on nature walks through the forest with the children and pretend that you're inside the Amazon jungle. Talk about how the forest has similar characteristics and ask the kids what types of animals they might find in the jungle and what other animals they can locate in the forest. This can help give them a distinction between the different types of forests across the world. Bring binoculars, buckets and paper bags, so the kids can collect items to use for crafting.
  
  

Stories

• Begin reading jungle stories late in the day before night sets in. Place a blanket on the grass and encourage the older kids to take turns reading while passing around the book and showing the pictures to the rest of the campers. Choose stories such as "Jungle Book" by Jim Weiss and Rudyard Kipling or "If I Were a Jungle Animal" by Amanda Ellery and Tom Ellery.
  
  

Jungle Crafts

• Help the kids make jungle crafts from materials they found on the nature walk and other materials. The kids can make paper lions out of orange and yellow card stock. Give the kids scissors to cut out the lion's face and help them place plastic eyeballs on his eyes. They can use markers to draw on other features and make the whiskers out of black card stock.
  
  Some kids might enjoy making a nature collage featuring their own pictures of jungle animals. Help the kids glue a rock, stock and leaf border around their drawing. Show them how to sew a small jungle blanket together with zebra, leopard and giraffe pieces of felt material. They can simply use a needle and thread to sew the squares together until they have a jungle-themed blanket for dolls or other toys. Print out a few coloring pages for small children to color also. (See the Resources section to view and print these out.)
  
  

Obstacle Courses

• Design jungle-themed obstacle courses for campers of all ages. Create a quicksand section by setting down a small brown blanket within the course. The kids can jump over the quicksand and move on to other parts of the course that include tires wrapped in plastic ivy vines, hula hoops and then a kids' pool filled with crocodile toys that the kids need to dodge as they walk through the water. Place a sandbox filled with rubber snakes within the course and hide prizes for the kids to find within the snake pit. Include other activities throughout the courses that involve using jump ropes or small rebound trampolines.