Hi Eric

I am not sure what you hope to have as your end result, but I would suggest the following:

Get a "crawl tube" (that young children play with)and cover it with gray paper, with "rocks" painted on. This can be the entrance.

Next, get some painters tarps or canvases, the more gray color the better. Paint on the tarps so that they look like the walls of a cave.

Once the tarps are dry, hang then from the ceiling in such a way as to form the walls of the cave. (think tent or canopy) Use dark paper that you have crinkled up and put it on top to look like a cave ceiling.

You will have to figure out how big your cave needs to be based on the number of children that need to be in the cave at any one time.

And if the crawl tube is not workable, maybe you can cover the door of the room with dark paper that has been painted to look like a hillside, with the mouth of the cave painted on it? Cut a flap so that the children can enter by stooping or crawling. (and make sure your adult leaders can also get in!) If you have any children with physical disabilities, you will need to take that into account as well.

Anyway, when you get your cave made, post photos!

Blessings
Jan S

You will have to plan

Jan, I like the entrance ideas! The cave is in the room where all of our elementary children meet for worship, so we're looking at a room that is roughly 30' x 40'. So far, I plan to cover one wall with black fabric (I have that already so it's no extra expense) and use crumpled brown paper, with some gray and black spray paint, around the edges to make it look as if the cave goes back even deeper. I'd like to try and cover at least 2 of the remaining walls with paper or canvas or something to make them solid walls but I'm looking at a large surface area to try to cover. I wondered about using some refrigerator boxes (I've got a friend at ABC Warehouse who can keep me well supplied).

As for covering the ceiling, my concern is lighting, I want the room to be more dim than usual but not dark, we'll have kids as young as 2 and 3 in that room so I don't want to make it too scary. I wondered about using some kind of indirect lighting that might give it more of a fantastical feel but I've only got fuzzy ideas about how to do that (maybe a strand of colored rope light behind some paper to make some kind of glowing rock formation).

I'll probably have to scale things back from my vision to meet budget and time constraints but hopefully this gives some idea of what I'm thinking. Thanks.

Hi
Wow- it is a big space!
Fridge boxes are very useful, as are the big "tubes" that carpet is rolled on, if you have a source.

I think rope lights could work, but you might want to see if some of your members have batterty operated camping lanterns that they might lend. That could look pretty cool!

You can hang tarps or paper "walls" using shower hooks and 3M hooks that release when you are done.

Can't wait to see the photos!
Jan

Hi Eric,

In a similar room project, we used those brown paper drop cloths
you can find at the paint store. They come with some reinforcing threads in them, so they're durable. They are cheaper and lighter than canvas and can be TAPED to the walls, which is a plus. I suppose you could spray paint them with a little bit of gray paint, but brown isn't a bad cave color either.

We made a cave out of our classroom by taking thin cardboard and putting brown paper on it and stuffing it with other paper and styrofoam and nailed it up and the kids loved it.