Camping Activities to Use at Home or at Camp

If your family likes camping but you aren’t able to get out as much as you would like, some at-home camping activities can be a fun substitute. Or if your little ones are new to camping and you want to explore it, try making a fake campfire, cooking some indoor s’mores and having a day of camping related activities. Of course you can also use these when you’re camping if you want to add to the experience.

If you’re looking for more camping ideas, check out my roundup of camping activities for kids.

Crafting a Lovely Life has some really cute camping coloring pages you can use at home or when you’re traveling to or at a campsite, too. And Growing Up Gabel has a fun camping themed I spy printable.

These camping riddles are meant to be used as part of a camp site scavenger hunt, but if you’re at home you can also just ask the questions and see if kids know the answers. You can find the printables at The Crazy Outdoor Mama.

Talk about what might happen on a camping trip, or tell stories of trips you’ve been on before, with DIY camping themed story stones. These are easy to make with instructions from Crafts on Sea, and kids are sure to use them to tell other stories as well.

3 Dinosaurs has some camping themed sequencing cards that would be good to use with little ones who’ve never been camping before to help them see the sequence of events (pitching the tent, having s’mores, getting in the tent and getting in the sleeping bag).

Happy Mom Hacks has a paid collection of more than 30 printables for camping, lots of which could also be used at home. There are riddles, trivia, matching games, word searches, tic tac toe boards, and more active games like scavenger hunts, minute to win it games, social bingo and more.

You may not actually see animals or tracks if you go camping for real, but this animal track matching game from Adventure in a Box is a fun way to talk about habitats and the traces that animals leave, whether you’re in the woods or your own backyard.

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Activities to Do While Camping with Kids

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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