What are your fun family activites while camping?

[GreenBananas]

I thought I would ask this question two fold… What are your family camping traditions? And what activities do you find yourself doing the most with younger children?

[MALE_RN_777]

Of course it depends where you go and who goes with you. Our kids like to swim or go down waterslides. We also take along little ceramics and paints you can buy at Wal*Mart. Glowsticks and Jiffy Pop (with extention) to pop over the fire. Bikes or golf cart rentals to look around at other's sites to get ideas. Bubbles and ballons and big chalk.

[Possumgulch]

Our Grandkids have camped with us since they were babies and we find things each trip that they love. Hikes are always great, and they always take an empty trash bag to pick up trash that others have left (their idea, not ours) They love the naturalists talks that Mo State Parks have, and have earned Explorer Patches each year. This Fall we are going to ask persmission to collect leaves, and I will show them how to press them with Wax paper like I did in elementary school, and then we can identify each tree species...will be enough fun they won't even know they are learning...lol...Hopefully when they are middle aged, they will tell their kids/grandkids about the fun they had while camping with Gramps and Gram

[GreenBananas]

The Car Doctor wrote:
Fishing and geocaching are a couple of our favorites.

We are going to try our first geocaching this weekend.

[JJBuck]

every campfire has to have at least one round of "20 questions" and "i spy with my little eye". Both the 5 and 10 year old have been playing 20Q's for so long they're experts. The 5 yr old in particular comes up with some great "person/place/things" herself, and machine guns out "guesses" so fast and random she's usually the one to solve ... especially when it's a yes to "is it in this campsite". We have a traxxas battery remote control truck thsi is always a big hit, especially at night with the lights we rigged up. We kayak, and try to find a small cove on any lake we hit so we can have our own private beach. Also have a traxxas battery boat that we'll run along with the kayaks, lotsa fun there. And fish, both kids love to fish. We're usually so busy swimming/kayaking/exploring during the day, night fishing has become a pretty good tradition. Then ... the campfire, games and story telling. We also usually get in one game of "sticks and stones tic tac toe". Scratch a # in the dirt, or on paper if we're hiding in the tent thru a thunderstorm. Sticks and stones instead of X and O ... and there ya go.

[The_Car_Doctor]

Fishing and geocaching are a couple of our favorites. Also, a couple of my kids just got some inexpensive digital cameras and spend hours and hours taking pictures and videos.

[Bipeflier]

Half dozen cheap Frizbee's (technically flying discs)with numbers or initials. Disc Golf!

Player picks a tree, table, etc. as the first "hole". Everyone throws and you have a golf game! We make up rules like "you have to go between those trees and around the fire pit to land on the table".

Take turns deciding which is the next hole.

[GreenBananas]

Chock Full o' Nuts wrote:
My kids used to love to play charades around the campfire. Another time I showed the kids how to make chains from clover

We like charades too. I am going to see if we can figure out how to make chains from clover!

[GreenBananas]

dcb17b wrote:
Camping traditions are blueberry pancakes on Saturday morning,pizza pie irons and/or s'mores around the campfire and family walks around the campground.

Love this!!! We met this sweet little older couple in Mueller State Park this summer, who said they have always made s'mores with granny smith apples instead of crackers. Going to try it this labor day weekend. And if by chance they are reading this, we got our water pump fixed... Thanks for being so sweet!

[dcb17b]

The 4yo granddaugter love to look at nature(trees,leaves,bugs,rocks) so we take nature hikes and collect things. She also loves dirt,but then again what kid does't? She will sit for hours with a spoon and a cup or bowl and fill them with dirt and dump them out. Playgrounds or a beach is always a good time. We try to have a small assortment of her "favorite" toys from home so she has something familar to play with. Camping traditions are blueberry pancakes on Saturday morning,pizza pie irons and/or s'mores around the campfire and family walks around the campground. The thing is that we don't really "plan" our activities they just happen,or not,that is OK too.

[Chock_Full_o__N]

My kids used to love to play charades around the campfire. And throw rocks at trees, the further away the better. DD made a nice little scrapbook of leaves from different trees once. Another time I showed the kids how to make chains from clover--that entertained them half the afternoon. And how to whistle with a blade of grass. A couple times I even took a baby pool for our youngest DS. The older kids were able to access the lake, but DS couldn't walk well enough to get there(he is very mentally handicapped.) So we asked permission and then set up the pool with about 6 inches of water on our site. We sat him in there and gave him several cups and bowls, and he was happy as a clam.

[Nerak]

We took our grandkids out recently. Kids bingo was a hit. Also have a board game called "camp"' it was lots of fun to play with them. Also I went to Walmart and bought a kids plastic bow and arrow set. At the campsite, I stacked plastic cups on the campsite grill and they took turns trying to hit the target! It was great. Also popular with them is a scavenger hunt where they look for objects in woods like leaves shaped like a heart, acorns, pinecones, etc. Gives them different things to do.

[Minnesota_is_Ho]

My kids are young (7 and 2). They love looking for frogs, playing at the playgrounds (a necessity for us) and generally puddling around outside. Every evening we camp, we go for a walk around the cg just after supper. The kids get a big kick out of seeing the other rigs and waving.

[GreenBananas]

the bear II wrote:


Throwing rocks at cans

This is exaclty why I asked the question... Very simple idea yet, that is something we have never done! We will give it a try to see how it goes over!

[the_bear_II]

Exploring nature... looking for animals, signs of animals, identifying plants & trees, geology(rock formations, sediment layers, rock collecting) and more. A good source for information is to pick up a Boy Scout Handbook (the older the better). The handbook has lots of suggestions for fun things to do while camping.

Here's a website with a complete Boy Scout Handbook you can read from 1911 It's fun to look through it and there is a lot of great information in it.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29558/29558-h/29558-h.htm

A night we would play card games or scrabble, yatzee, uno, bingo..etc.

Tell spooky stories around the campfire.

Star gazing

Throwing rocks at cans or skipping stones on a lake or river.

Bubbles are always fun for the kids

[lgarcia]

Gotta have smores. The babies love the tub of Mega Blox that I keep in the TT - lightweight and colorful. They also gravitate towards any unused Lynx leveling blocks.