Campfire Centerpiece Crafts

Whether you're the leader of a Tiger Cub Scout den or teaching an elementary school art class, you'll spend a lot of time planning craft activities for your young charges. Most young children love the idea of a campfire (particularly with hot dogs and s'mores cooking over it!), and projects oriented around the idea of a roaring fire on a cold night will yield many creative responses.

Old-Fashioned Campfire

Collect some cardboard toilet-paper or paper-towel rolls as your logs, and cut flaming shapes out of brown, yellow, orange and red construction paper or have the older kids cut them. Place the logs and paper flames on a round piece of black card stock or laminated construction paper to give your piece some stability. Glue the logs in place. Fold the leaping flames near the bottom so that they can "stand" and roar through the wood, then glue them to the logs.

Camping on the Beach

Swap out the black base for a tan one, and add some sea shells. Glue the sea shells in between the logs, and let the older kids cut out crabs, starfish, jellyfish and other creatures that lurk near the edge of the water. Place the cut-out sea animals on the base of the centerpiece. Stack the logs, erect the fire, spread some white multipurpose glue on the ends of the logs and strew some sand on the glue.

Cooking over the Campfire

Pick up some plastic candy buckets the week after Halloween the kind without the jack-o-lantern's mask. Make a frame with some scrap lumber and a piece of wire from a clothes hanger to dangle the bucket over the fire. Fill the pot with cotton balls to make it look like a frothy witch's concoction, or add blue craft grass to give the look of boiling water.

S'Mores Utensils

To make s'mores, even the youngest camper knows that you need graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. Scatter some miniature chocolate bars and cardboard pieces colored to look like graham crackers around the campfire. Finish the decoration by placing some marshmallows around the tableau.