Camping Preschool Activities, Crafts, and Games

Free Camping and Summer Activities, Rhymes, Printables, and Camping Book Suggestions

Children have fun hiking or backpacking through the woods and then sleeping out under the stars. What about setting up a campsite right in your backyard?

Camping Indoor Activities and Games

Bug Hunt Sensory Bin
To make ladybugs, spray paint some beans or small pebbles with red paint. Decorate with black spots. Fill a large plastic tub with grass, leaves, and sticks. Hide ladybugs and plastic bugs in the grass. Let children hunt for bugs. How many ladybugs did they find?

Cross the River (Numbers 1-10)
Cut stone shapes out of gray construction paper. Write the numbers 1-10 on the stones. Use masking tape to define a river on the floor. Place the stones in random order inside the river. Place the number 1 stone on one side of the river and the number 10 stone at the opposide side. Encourage children to jump from stone to stone in the correct order counting out loud as they cross the river.

Sandwich Fly Swat (Letters of the Alphabet Recognition)
Cut some squares with rounded corners out of brown craft paper to resemble sandwiches. Write letters of the alphabet on the "sandwiches." Hand out a flyswatter to each child. Call out a letter and let children swat the fly on the correct sandwich.

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

Five Little Hotdogs Felt Story
Cut a circle shape (pan) and five brown hot dogs out of felt. 

Five little hot dogs frying in the pan. (Hold up five fingers.)
The grease got hot, and one went BAM! (Clap.)

Four little hot dogs…   
Three…       
Two…         
One…     
No little hot dogs frying in the pan.
The pan got hot and it went BAM!

Around the Campfire Rhyme and Movement
Create a pretend campfire and let children sit around it. Hand out a twig and a paper roll (flashlight) to each child. 

Adapted by Jolanda Garcia

We sit around the campfire 
On a chilly night (Rub arms up and down with hands.) 
Telling spooky stories (Say "ooooh.")
In the pale moonlight (Hold flashlight up to the ceiling.)

We get marshmallows 
From the backpack (Pretend to open backpack.) 
to cook over the fire 
for a yummy snack. (Pretend to roast marshmallows over the fire.)

We get more logs (Each child adds his to the pretend fire.) 
the fire flickers bright 
And we sing camp songs 
under the starry night. (Lay down on the floor and look up to the ceiling.)

Setting up the tent If you don't have a tent there are many easy ways to create a tent.

Simple bed sheet tent for the backyard.

Easy to make tents for indoors.

Camping Outdoor Games and Activities

Play outdoor games such as tug-o-war or the classic sack race or just plain tag. What about some old-time classics as Kick the Can or Capture the Flag? Here are some other ideas:

Sand or Bean Ball Throws Make some easy balloon bean or sand bags (see link below) and throw the bags into different targets (can, tire, baskets, box, rock, etc.). Each hit gets a score. Add up the points for each player. The player with the most points wins.

Spiderweb Maze Give each child a ball of yarn (different colors). Let children unwind the ball of yarn in and out around various objects -- trees, bushes, chairs, posts, etc. After all the yarn is unwound, challenge children to untangle the spider maze. Hand out a cardboard tube for child to hold on to for rewinding the ball of yarn while following the maze.

Blanket Ball Hand out a blanket or bed sheet and a ball to a group of children. The children hold on to the edges of the blanket with the ball in the center. Let children practice rolling the ball to each other or throwing the ball high in to the air and catching it.

Nature Hike Now that your campsite is all set up, take a walk to a nearby park or forest preserve to collect natural materials like leaves, rocks, feathers, pine cones, etc., for craft projects or other activities. Here are some great ideas:

Use natural materials for your artwork	Make a Fairy House	Use natural materials for your bug craft	Use natural materials to display on a clothes line

Camping and Nature Crafts

Leaf Sun Craft

What you need:
Different kinds of leaves
CD
Glue
Newspaper
Heavy books
Decoration materials (gem stones, glitter, etc.)
String

What you do:
Collect different kinds of leaves. Press leaves by placing them inside a newspaper and cover it with thick books for two days. Add glue to the nonshiny side of the CD and arrange leaves all around. Decorate with gem stones, glitter, etc. Let dry. When dry, attach a string and hang the leaf art from a tree, your porch, or a ceiling.

Camping Food and Recipes

One of the best parts about camping out is the food! Even the simplest foods taste better if they are cooked outdoors over an open fire. Here are some simple and yummy recipes:

Snake Bread on a Stick
Get a can of French bread and roll dough parts into a long thin snake. Peel the bark off one end of a green stick and briefly heat that end over the fire. Twist snake dough around the peeled end of the stick and toast over the fire until golden brown. Let it cool off and then pull it off the stick.

Octopus Hot Dogs on a Stick
Take a hot dog and slice it lengthwise in half but leaving the two inches connected at one end. Slice through the two halves again. You should now have four legs for the octopus. Stick a prepared green stick through the head (see Snake on a Stick recipe). Hold over the fire until legs curl up and the hot dog is heated through.

Doughboys Mix some Bisquick and water until sticky. Fold around a prepared green stick (see Snake on a Stick recipe) and toast over fire until the dough is slightly brown. Remove the stick and fill the center with jelly, or a hot dog.

Banana Canoes
Pull a part of a banana peel back and scoop out a piece to form a "canoe." Fill the space with chocolate chips and marshmallow bits. Place the peel back on top and wrap in foil. Bake in a fire for just a few minutes.

Camping Printables, Coloring Pages, and Resources

Scavenger Hunt Game Printable	Nature Rocks Treasure Hunt Ideas	Stars in a Jar Craft	Hand Shadow Puppets	The EarTwiggles Go Camping Coloring Page

Around the Campfire

After dinner relax around the campfire. Sing camp songs or tell camp stories while roasting marshmallows. Play a group game or make hand shadow puppets. Another night activity that you can do is to watch the stars in the sky. This is both fun and educational.

Add-A-Noise Campfire Game Sit around the campfire and choose someone to make a sound -- a cough, sneeze, whistle, snap, click, clap, stomp, etc. The next person repeats that sound, adding another one, and so on around the circle. For smaller children, make the sound(s) one time around the circle before adding a new one.

Camping Books

Bailey Goes Camping	Curious George Goes Camping	Fred and Ted Go Camping	Glow-in-the-Dark Constellations
Maisy Goes Camping:	S Is for S'mores: A Camping Alphabet	Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe	Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems
When We Go Camping	The Graves Family Goes Camping	A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee

Camp Songs and Stories 
Go to www.ldssplash.com to listen and print out a large selection of camp songs.

Campfire stories