Young Kids Camping

This year we will be taking two young 2 and 6 year old kids with us camping. I haven't camped with small ones before, so I'm not sure just what to bring to keep them busy.. I need to plan ahead this year. Any thoughts?

Good luck.

Mine are now 9 and 6, but they have each been camping since they were 4 months old. (We always went camping on Thanksgiving and they were both born in July).

We always have lots of craft projects. I use pinterest as well as google searches for ideas.

Camping and outdoors makes it a great place to do assorted projects that are just too messy for indoors. Think tempera paints and vinyl shower curtains.

We always took a small (3') round kiddie pool with us. It takes just a few gallons of water to fill up and the kids had a blast for hours with it.

Bubbles are your friend. Learn to make them in BIG batches.

Chalk for drawing on the road or rocks.

Buckets and shovels for digging worms for fishing; fishing, but be sure to have life jackets for them. Or just for digging. Jayda still likes to dig in dirt, gravel, sand, etc.

Hula hoops, inline skates, bicycles, and other "ride-ons" make for a great activity boost.

Get them involved in cooking.....pie irons, weenees over the fire, dutch oven, etc.

For cold, rainy days a DVD player and an assortment of movies are the only way to get by. If it's warm, playing in the rain is another great activity.

Just some of my thoughts.

My suggestion is to camp with Butch and Donna  

When we got custody of Dylan and Jade, He was 3-1/2 and she was 20 months. Donna is more creative than we were. Definitely DVD's for rainy days. We just took the usual assortment of toys and spent a lot of time at playgrounds. As they got older we usually bring their bikes. Oh, they love to play in the fire and I could usually keep them busy picking up pinecones to throw in the fire for a while. We also would camp with others that had children so they would have other people to play with also.

Ours aren't that old, but our 2 year old LOVES a good scavenger hunt. We generally try to create something when we first get to a CG so the hunt is relevant to your surroundings.
playgrounds full of other kids also tend to work out well. And, if all else fails camp with Donna, looks like she has all sorts of stuff to do   

Wow.. Gonna have to find new camping friends.. All this kid talk makes me nervous. What happened to the adult campers.. With grown up activities and adult beverages, etc.

chuck wrote:Wow..  Gonna have to find new camping friends..  All this kid talk makes me nervous.  What happened to the adult campers..  With grown up activities and adult beverages,  etc.

Hahaha, Chuck! You just don't realize what you are missing....having young kids when you are OLD!

We have some friends that have been married for 14 years. Never wanted kids, never tried to have kids. Guess what? On their 14th anniversary, she was 14 weeks pregnant!

Anyway, it just makes camping more fun and you just wait until they go to bed to do the "grown up activities and beverages".

bring there bikes

Patience... and alcohol... lots of alcohol...  

Thanks everyone for your great ideas. When I was a kid I loved dirt digging and making roads for my match box cars, lol, so remember those days. Those with kids know how to keep them busy. I will be prepared when the kids come camping now. Thanks again...

I finally got a new computer but every time I get on this site it takes a long time to load a page or post. Is anyone else having this issue or is it just me?

No problems here... On my laptop or on my phone.

chuck wrote:No problems here... On my laptop or on my phone.

I just restarted the computer. I didn't even see that my post showed up. Thanks

Darcamper wrote:I finally got a new computer but every time I get on this site it takes a long time to load a page or post. Is anyone else having this issue or is it just me?

I had that problem the other day, pages would'nt load for the longest time. Seems to be working fine now, but it wasnt my computer, it was the site.