Camp Crafts for Kids to Make

June 9, 2025 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

I love throwback crafts during the summer, and making camp crafts at home or as part of a camping unit/summer camp at school is a great way to get kids engaged in some classic crafting.

The first thing I think of when I think of camp crafting is lanyards, and while I think of lanyards as being the full necklace style you wear around your neck, kids will probably get tired of weaving before then so you can make shorter lanyards for keychains like these from Oh Yay Studio. You can use plastic lacing, paracord or even yarn to make these.

There are tons of variations on paracord bracelets and keychains that are fun for kids to make. This keychain from Artsy Fartsy Mama is easy to make and fun for kids to use as backpack charms during the school year.

Friendship bracelets are another classic to make at camp or over the summer. The easiest ones are just braids, like these from The Soccer Mom Blog. The original pattern includes an essential oil diffuser button bead, but you can leave the oils out and just have a cute braided bracelet if you’d rather.

Or you can use yarn to make classic bracelets with this tutorial from Simplify Create Inspire. This one uses a cardboard circle to help keep your strands separate until you need to knot them.

While we’re on the subject of yarn, you can’t forget the God’s eye (which is the only craft I really remember making the time I went to camp). There are a bunch of tutorials for these, and once you start making one you’ll probably remember how to do it without any assistance. I like this one from Make and Takes, which includes fun beaded accents, too.

Bring a little nature into your summer crafts by decorating walking sticks for you next nature walk. You can paint them, like these from Crafts by Courtney, or wrap them in yarn like Babble Dabble Do did. Or find a Y-shaped stick to make a shaker like this one from Minie Co., or use them for weaving, which I shared at Our Daily Craft.

Do you have a favorite camp craft for kids? I’d love to hear about it!

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Weaving Projects to Make With Kids

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Book Review: Rise Up!

It might seem weird to feature a book about protest movements around the Fourth of July, but as Rise Up! Powerful Protests in American History reminds us, protest is patriotic and part of the very fabric of American life from the beginning.

This picture book, written by history teacher Rachel C. Katz and illustrated by Sophie Bass, tells a rhyming story of how Americans have stood up throughout the nation’s history to protest and spread the word about injustice and unsafe conditions. From the Boston Tea Party to modern movements like the Standing Rock pipeline protests and the Obergefell case, it touches on women’s rights, environmental activism, civil rights, Pride, access for disabled people and more.

The illustrations, often based on historic protest signs and artwork, help tell the stories, while a timeline, map, and overview of each event for further discussion. Readers will learn about Silent Spring and The Jungle, the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike, the Seneca Falls convention, Robert Smalls, the Delano Grape Strike and the movement to un-dam the Klamath River, to name a few.

Each event includes a few bullet points to provide context about what happened, why and what the result was. The book reminds readers that protests are not always effective, or don’t always get the people involved what they want right away (since it took women 72 years to get the right to vote after Seneca Falls, for example).

This book is a great way to introduce kids to the long and proud history of protest movements in the United States and could prompt discussions about current events and things happening that they might want to see changed. It could also be used to start kids researching different protests discussed in the book for further learning. You can talk about how art can educate people and encourage kids to make their own art pieces to educate others about something important to them.

Rise Up! is a great starting point for learning about the history of protest and the effects it has had on American history. The publisher’s website has more resources for teaching with this book at the link below.

About the book: 48 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Barefoot Books. Suggested retail price $17.99.

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