There’s a campground we love to stay at in the mountains here in Colorado. It’s the perfect place to catch a break from late-summer temperatures. The campground is surrounded by pine trees, wildlife, hiking trails, and beautiful views. But after a few days, it gets a little boring for the kids. There’s no playground or pool and with people always coming and going it’s hard to make friends. So my kids get bored. Fast. Though they would prefer to watch movies, we would prefer they spend their time outside or doing something creative. I knew I needed a solution to campground boredom.
I thought back to when I was a kid, our RV had a game cabinet and I would pull out the Simon and play it forever. Then move on to solitaire, coloring books, and those fun plastic lanyard bracelets that were so popular back in the early-90’s. We always had something around for the times I got bored. So I took a cue from my mom and started to put together an activity cabinet for my kids.
I knew that we had enough around our house to complete this cabinet without going and buying anything new. As I’m always trying to teach the kids- reduce, reuse, and recycle.
How to Make a Kid’s Activity Box for Your RV
First, I needed a sturdy tote box. I thought about using this box, that I use for my Christmas decor, but it was a little too tall for the cabinet I had available. Then I remembered I had one of these fantastic totes from Michael’s craft store that hold a ton of art supplies sitting empty. It was the perfect size to go above our dinette.
I started by going through all of my old scrapbook supplies that I never use anymore. Pens, markers, colored pencils (no crayons, they will melt!), scissors, washi tape, bakers twine, glue, and much more. (I didn’t bother with paint because I don’t want to worry about the mess.) Then I added paper pads, construction paper, and cardstock, plus a few activity books and word search books we had lying around. As well as a few little trinkets and toys.
I figure with a little creativity this jumble of things could be something fun. We’ve enjoyed paper airplane races, leaf imprinting, homemade cards for family members, and fantastic pictures.
Best Games to Bring Camping
We love board games and our family favorite is Beat the Parents, so I brought the Disney Edition for our cabinet. If my kids were still little I would have brought Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. It was insanely popular with my toddlers and has a cute outdoors theme as well. Oh and Shelby’s Snack Shack, ahh memory lane. I also found the boys’ Jenga game that they love, but always forget about. As well as one of our many checkers’ sets, which my twins love, but I’m not a fan. So I grabbed my personal favorite, pick-up sticks!
Educational Activities for Camping
Shhh don’t tell the kids, I wanted to sneak in a few things that are disguised as fun, but actually will teach them something. Mostly survival, Boy/Girl Scout, type things. A few years ago my oldest son received a knot-tying kit that he hadn’t opened yet so that went in the cabinet too. We also have some fun constellation map cards that I thought would be great to use when we are further from the cities. As well as a compass and a few little flashlights for fun.
I also had a few Home Depot and Lowe’s kid’s building kits lying around and threw those in as well. Surprisingly, this has been a favorite activity for my boys. They LOVE doing these kits together while we’re camping. In fact, I’m going to pick up a few more for this camping season.
Geocaching for Kids
One of our favorite outdoor activities is Geocaching. We’ve been caching since 2007 and make a point to hunt a few down nearly every place we go. The boys love the larger caches to exchange a few things so we always have little toys and trinkets ready to go. As I was going through the house I picked through some unloved trinkets and used an old Dropps box to hold them as we travel. Then I just refill it every so often with new things. Keeping the box in the activity cabinet reminds us to open up the app and see what’s around.
What I Purchased for Our Kid’s Camping Fun Box
Nothing. As I said, everything we had was just lying around the house. Things the kids had forgotten about, stuff I didn’t use anymore, and a few well-loved board games lost amongst our collection. And in the end, the activity cabinet has been a hit. The kids understand that when they say they’re bored at camp I will direct them to the cabinet. Sometimes we still get into arguments for TV time, but mostly that’s a rainy day activity for us.
I would love to know how you keep your kiddos occupied at the campground! Leave a comment below and share all those awesome parenting ideas, because you know, it takes a village!
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