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Camping: move the outdoors in

September 4, 2014

Starry nights. Scary nights: hoot of the owl, howl of the wolf. Camping out is fun, mysterious and adventurous. An adventure in the make believe forest, tents, stories around the pretend fire, marshmallows (please, Mom?). This is a great rainy day activity.

Skills/learning/benefits: creative, drama, social skills, role play, exploration

The Props: Blankets and chairs make great tents. You don’t have to have a real tent from the sporting goods store. Save that for your real camping experiences. Get a few chairs and throw a blanket over them to make a tent / cave, maybe it’s a snow cave. Or use a small table with blankets strategically placed to cover all the sides and make a hideout.kids-around-fake-campfire-24742376_8bb98ce706_z

Sleeping bags, ideally not your best ones, will add to the camping atmosphere. Each child brings their own pillows. Flashlights are fun for most children at any age. If you haven’t already, might be a good time to invest in some rechargeable batteries. Turn day to night by adding some temporary curtains (blankets) to the windows to make it nice and dark. Campers may want to borrow some simple cooking utensils and dishes for their meals around the campfire. Stoke their campfire with logs made from empty paper towel rolls or egg cartons. And a backpack; got to have a backpack on a camp-out; where else they going to stash their stuff? Certainly some stuffed animals for the forest. Picking artificial flowers could be a great hike from the base camp. And what about those marshmallows, Mom?

Indoors or outdoors. The kids will love having a camping adventure.