Camping with your family offers a wide array of possibilities for enjoyment but if don’t feel like camping out this year, here are some kids’ crafts you can try at home. These summer camp crafts are sure to keep them…and you… occupied all season. From indoor to outdoor activities, there are activities for all ages, and you can bring the summer camp fun to your home.
Let’s go!
- Mess-Free Handicrafts
When I hear summer camp crafts, the first thing that comes to mind are those mess-free activities which are of course great for both indoors and outdoors. From making and decorating their own to kites to trying their hand at different friendship bracelet patterns, origami and all. It’s important that their decoration or craft is in line with the summer theme and when they are done with the craft, for example, the kite, they can run outside and have a blast in the sun.
- Tie-Dyed T-Shirts
As campers, we all look forward to tie-dyed T-shirt day and so does our kids. Make them excited about it by telling them a few days before the day. You can buy your tie-dye kit online or at any local craft store. Get everyone’s white shirt ready; it is recommended they use their old white shirts instead of buying an entirely new one. Although your kids may need supervision, do well to make sure everyone is hands-on with their plastic gloves and messy clothes or aprons. Let the fun begin… They’ll surely be proud of their T-shirts when it is all dried up.
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Nature Hunt
This can be done either at a local park or in your backyard, and it is one of the amazing ways to appreciate nature. You can craft a bug or butterfly catcher to corral summer bugs or other creepy crawlers around the field and flowers so you can give them a closer look. If actually catching them seems too adventurous, you can simply give the kids a pencil and paper to make observations about them.
Better still you can go on a bird watch or nature walk, all these will make them see nature in a whole new light and appreciate nature even more.
- Tabletop Game Competition
Remember summer camp and those game rooms filled with foosball, ping-pong and other tabletop games, you can have some fun time with this right at home. You might need to invest in one of these; you can also join the kids to make the game more interesting, fun and engaging.
- Water Game Olympics
Its summer and the kids need to cool off, so a water game competition can be a great idea. Right in the comfort of your backyard, you can get this set up, games like sprinkler limbo, sponge dodgeball or any water game idea that comes to mind. It’s water, it’s summer, it’ll be super fun!
- Sand and Seashell Art
Camping is mostly about discovering nature and engaging in some worthwhile activities. From dying sands and stocking them up in a glass jar to using glue to form sandy signs and designs on paper. If you have seashells either from beach vacations or ordering them online, kids can have some fun time with those too. Either by painting shells, gluing them to a drawing to create picture frames or using to them to craft necklaces or hand-beads – the possibilities are endless.
- Journaling
Traditionally as sleep-away campers, we were instructed to write letters to our parents or better still we were asked to keep journals in order to write down our adventures, well, let’s bring that home too. You can get your kid a new journal and some nice colored pencils and encourage him or her to write about their summer adventure.
- Field Day
Everyone should partake in this, the whole family or better still the whole neighborhood and let the fun begin! Group games like soccer, kickball, wiffle-ball, capture the flag or any nice game that fall into this category. Other fun games to try on your field day are sack races or the amazing Tug o’ war.
- Backyard Camping
To get everyone in the camping mode, you can opt for a backyard camping night where you can simply set up a tent in the backyard and get camping. You can spice things up by stargazing, telling ghost stories, having s’mores and other traditional camping foods. Fire is dangerous but if you’re good with campfires and can give proper supervision to the kids, then build a camp fire (this totally depends on your neighborhood and how large your backyard is). You can have the entire family sit around it and be memorized by the flames. Enjoy the warmth, roast marshmallows, tell stories, and enjoy how the dancing flames bring your entire family together.
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