GO: Camping with KIDS!

This weekend we went camping with our kid's, ages 6 & 4. We had a blast, despite the fact that the mosquitos were the size of helicopters and they seemed to be immune to bug spray of any kind and my little four year old came down with a cold, the day of the camping trip. But, even so...we had such a great time out in nature (and I'm not a "roughing it" kind of girl, it was still GREAT!) To make your camping trip easier, here are a few fun ideas for your next trip.

Keep your kids busy and happy on your camping trip:

1. Make up a "Happy Camper Scavenger Hunt" (how CUTE is that??!!) http://creativehomemakers.blogspot.com/2010/07/camping-scavenger-hunt-for-kids.html

2. My son wanted the OFF! clip-on bug repellant SO BAD!! :) A kind person shared it with him at the camp and it actually seemed to ward off most of the mosquitos...not a bad investment! I also sprayed them both with 100% deet (which I don't usually do, I try to use the kid friendly kind - but they were seriously horrible).

3. Cook your own "FIRE DESSERT" with kids:

1. Start with a paper plate

2. Build your "fire ring" with black licorice

3. Lay down your kindling - shaved coconut

4. Lay down your logs - pretzels

5. Then, start your fire by pouring any red candy on it - Red Hots (we did red gummy bears! fun!)

4. First time ever we did a "Hula Hoop" contest - that was a big success & gave us lots of laughs in the process! (making the adults join in...even better!)

no limits hula hoop contest!!

5. Learned and played "Spoons" - it was a great game for a large group and super fun with kids too. We began with around 12 people, the picture below was when it was getting down to the wire, only 3 people still in! The competition was FIERCE! :)

by the end of the game, people were diving on the table for a spoon! oh, yeah! 

If you want to learn how to play spoons:
http://boardgames.about.com/od/cardgames/a/spoons.htm



6. One of our friends brought art supplies and entertained all the kids at their campsite with glitter, crayons and coloring pages. (they had such fun...it occupied even the boys!)

7. Campfire songs - ok, for some reason we all went blank when it came to thinking of campfire songs...wish we would have had this list! :)

http://www.songsforteaching.com/campfiresongs/

8. Make meals part of the fun!

http://familytravel.suite101.com/article.cfm/camping_recipes_for_kids

of course, ya gotta have s'mores!! some of our friends make them with Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. YUM-O!!

If you have a chance to go camping before the end of summer...It's a "DO" for your kids! Hope you have a chance to celebrate summer with your family at least one more time this year!

Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.  - Henry James