The kids are really interested in camping all of a sudden. With a few weeks left of summer vacation, I wasn’t quite prepared to take a 3 year old, 5 year old and baby camping, but I did come up with some fun ways to “camp” during the day in our backyard. Here are a few fun camping activities, books and gear we have been enjoying:

Camping Themed Activities for Kids

Crafts:

Camp Fire Hand Prints

Supplies: Red, orange, yellow and brown paint, paper

Directions: We swirled around the red, orange and yellow paint on a paper plate to make a “fire” like color. Then used it to make a handprint. Then I let the kids use their fingers in the brown paint to finger paint the logs for the fire.

Foam Silly S’mores

This cute s’more craft set came from Birthday Express. Everything you need to make tons of funny foam s’mores comes in the kit. It was easy and a lot of fun for the kids.

Eeboo Summer Crafts

We found some really fun craft sets from Eeboo this summer. We made Pom Pom Necklaces and Crepe Paper Flowers while we were “camping”. In addition to their site, you can get Eeboo crafts on Amazon.

Activities:

Camping Mad Libs {Free Printable}

This was our first try at a Mad Libs. I used to love these as a kid, so I created a camping themed printable geared towards younger kids. The kids thought it was so funny! To download and print: You can right click on the image to open it in a new window or click the “Camping Mad Libs” title above. Make sure to scale it to size when printing.

Backyard Scavenger Hunt

All of the camping supplies for the hunt are from Birthday Express. I love the fun little “camping” boxes for collecting scavenger hunt items, the binoculars and the camping paper products for our camping picnic after the hunt!

Story Cards

I told the girls that a really fun part about camping is sitting around the fire telling stories. To get our “camping stories” going I gave them a set of Eeboo Story Cards. They were outdoor, animal themed and made for some adorable tales. We sat around our fake campfire lining up the cards and telling stories.

Snacks:

Butterfly Snacks

I’ve seen these made with goldfish before, but we wanted to switch things up with our favorite snack: Pirate’s Booty. We filled a sandwich size bag half way with Pirate’s Booty. Next we pinched it in the middle and clipped it with a clothespin we painted/decorated ahead of time. Last we clipped a pipe cleaner at the top.

Mini Dirt Cups

These are a party favorite for my kids, and dirt seemed to go along well with camping! These are super easy and the kids can make them with very little help. We use instant pudding and fill up tiny glass cups. Then the kids smash up some Oreos to sprinkle on top. Last, they add some gummy worms to the dirt.

Books:

These are 10 great books about camping for kids:

1. Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping

2. P.J. Funnybunny Camps Out

3. Scooby-Doo: The Camping Caper

4. Biscuit Goes Camping

5. Just Me and My Dad

6. Humphrey’s Creepy-Crawly Camping Adventure

7. Curious George Goes Camping

8. S is for S’mores

9. Blaze A Trail

10. Maisy Goes Camping

Gear:

Tent & pretend fire

We got this tent and pretend campfire for Christmas and the kids play with it all the time. Plus, it’s certainly the only campfire that you can let a 9 month old baby crawl around & play with!

The tent and campfire are from The Land of Nod.

Pajamas

Even though we were camping mid-day, we thought we’d get more into the camping spirit if we wore pajamas. Lately, our favorite pjs for all three kids are from Skylar Luna. They are comfy, have awesome prints and are 100% organic cotton. I like their one piece pjs for Tommy because without feet, they fit longer. I also like that they have both shorts and pants options for the girls’ pjs. All of the pajamas the kids are wearing in these photos are Skylar Luna.

These activities and books were planned with my kids ages in mind: 4 and 5. Julie has a great camping post with activities and books geared toward even younger kids. You can check it out here. Happy trails campers!