Kids love making and playing with this glowing campfire craft! It’s super easy to make and perfect for summer, fire safety week, summer camp, or for imaginative play!

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This pretend campfire craft was an absolute hit with my kindergarten group! After reading Marshmallow Kisses by Linda Crotta Brennan, we got busy creating our very own light-up bonfire craft. Not only did the kids enjoy making their glowing campfires, but they couldn’t wait to get busy setting up a pretend camping area in the classroom and roasting their cotton ball marshmallows.

I love how very little prep is involved- you basically just need to gather the materials. And the kids were able to do it all on their own!

Check out even more fun crafts in the video below!

Glowing Campfire Craft for Kids

Materials for Glowing Campfire Craft

• Clear plastic cup
• Tissue paper in red, orange, and yellow
• Liquid glue (I used Tacky glue because of its thickness, but regular school glue works too.)
• LED tea light
• Twig or thin craft stick
• Cotton balls
• Brown construction paper
• Scissors

Directions for Glowing Campfire Craft

1. Cut your tissue paper up into little squares (or you can buy precut tissue paper squares).

2. Scrunch up a piece of tissue paper and glue it to the outside of a clear, plastic cup.

Continue until the entire cup is covered. (Some kids liked using the eraser end of a pencil to scrunch up their tissue paper, while others preferred scrunching the pieces into balls.)

3. As your tissue paper is drying, make a marshmallow roasting stick by gluing a cotton ball onto the end of a twig or thin craft stick.

4. Add some logs to your campfire by cutting strips of brown construction paper. Use a brown marker or crayon to add some details to your logs.

Now it’s time to set up your campfire! Start by setting up your logs. Place your LED tea light on top the logs and then put your tissue paper cup over the light.

Go somewhere dark and watch it glow. It looks just like a real campfire!

My kindergarteners were so excited to get playing with their campfires. They all ran to the darkest area of the classroom and set up their campfires and bonfires together in a huge group. It was so cute!

A few of the kids were even making plans on how they’d be using them at home. One girl couldn’t wait to get home so she could use it with her dolls. Another student had plans to use it as a nightlight when he went to bed!

Be sure to check out STEAM Kids book and ebook for even more creative STEM and STEAM ideas!