CPE1: Central Park East 1 Elementary School

Upper grade students (3rd through 5th grades) have the opportunity to participate in a spring camping trip focused on bioscience studies including animals, nature and ecology. It is also an opportunity for the classes to bond and develop community-building and personal and group challenges.

Over the last 25 years that CPE has been taking children camping, the experience has been extremely valuable to those who go and the CPE community as a whole.  

The camping day is highly structured to incorporate science, math, art, and language arts activities. Children do extensive science reading and writing based on their learning directly from nature. Field guides on insects, mammals, and birds are used. Science concepts like the ‘water cycle’, ‘food chains’, and ‘metamorphosis’ take on a new meaning when they are experienced first hand.

Language arts activities are also incorporated: journal writing, poetry, story telling, and reading. There is an excitement about this learning that is not found in the classroom. The poetry work started at camp often continues throughout the year.

Before the group leaves for the trip they do map work to orient the children to the location of the camp. On the trip there are map making and reading activities.  Art materials – water colors, markers, etc. – are used during art periods out in the woods which are a highlight of the trip.

When a class goes camping it is time for them to work together as a team. Some activities are designed specifically to help children learn to depend on each other and to respect each other as individuals and as members of the community. This work pays off in the years to come as children work together in cooperative learning activities in different areas of the curriculum.