Oh, many possibilities for fun in the garden just by using your imagination & giving time to children. These are some things I've done with my kids & my great-niece & nephew. -Play hide & seek using a variety of animal figures easily carried about by children at a price you can afford to have them chipped. Even kids' meal toys work as minis. Leave them out spring-fall until needing to put away during frosty winter weather. -Allow some of the mini plastic toys to bathe in the birdbaths. Children can't resist playing in the water. -Play I spy describing what you see in the garden. -Clear paths for them to know where to walk. Encourage them to patrol the garden looking for ... a butterfly, a bird, a pink flower, a ripe tomato or strawberry, etc. without you right behind them. Then they come back to you where you're in the garden to get you to come see. That way you get garden work done & they burn off a bit of energy in the double backing to you. Helps you be less frustrated with having a child in the garden with you when there's work to be done. (Can also have them prepare the table for snack or lunch, pick flowers, set table, pick garnishes, etc. If you've taught them which flowers are edible, they will enjoy snipping those, too. Be sure to communicate which & how much are okay for cutting that day, so you're not devastated by a crew cut kid job. -Give a hint of something that you know is already in there, so it's easier for them to find. -Kid size garden tools & gloves. -Kid size chair or oversized chair so you can sit together on the same one. -Have chairs easy to move to shade if a hot day or have chairs in both locations sun & shade. -Bubbles - as a surprise you pull out of your basket or bag as a regular part of gardening together. There are spill proof bubbles as well, which are ideal for younger kids. -Let them paint structures with water & clean paintbrushes on a dry day. Craft sponge brushes or the cheap dollar store brushes work just fine and if they get too dirty to clean up you can toss them. The water makes it look darker & it dries soon enough not leaving a trace of their "painting". If you have some mild cleaner & a scrub brush nearby they might even clean the furniture for you at the same time. Be prepared to get a bit wet. -On hot days make fruit juice popsicles the night before or early in morning to take out during a break. -Take a beverage & snack out with you in a small cooler. -Planned breaks from working to sit, snack, or play games. -Have a back pack filled with teddy bear picnic items: book, mini tea set, tablecloth & napkins, & of course the bear. -Have a basket & kid craft scissor just for them to harvest herbs, salad greens, peas, or other easy to harvest things that they can also carry in the basket to the hose to wash. Then include their things in the meal preparation for the family later. Ask them for "their oregano" for the spaghetti, which they'll proudly offer. Compliment them on the aroma & be sure to compliment them when serving the family meal. Let them use herbs as garnish or help them make tea for everyone & serve it. -Plan ahead a bit for the gardening time to include work & play as kids won't want to work as long as you or stay on task nearly as well. Sometimes, by asking them what they'd like to do you might be surprised that turning compost with the large pitchfork is their desire, not playing checkers in the shade. Be prepared to finish what they start & can't. -Seems like anything mini is a delight to school age kids. Give them a mystery to solve or a job to do & they're on their way. Younger preschool children need a lot more direct supervision & assistance, but can still learn to enjoy the garden space if you have something just for them. They especially want to copy their older siblings. Small cups with a 1 qt or less bucket can keep them busy scooping & pouring as long as you refill the water a few times. Don't expect them to actually water anything. -Oh, & let them have an area of the garden to do what they wish. They may or may not want to grow what you intended for that space. They may just want to have the dirt to dig in or bury a rock or something even though that's not what you want to happen. Give them a choice between a few seeds to plant as well as a transplant, so they don't lose patience waiting for sprouting. Help them know where to walk as well because they might step on what was sown. Mulch may help mark the outside of the planting area. Let them decorate popsicle sticks are markers or on paper tags you slip into sealed baggies to bury partway in soil. -Sometimes a container garden placed near the other garden plants is all they need to be satisfied with having their own space. -For perennial vegetables & fruits it's nice to include them in the shopping, planting, labeling, & upkeep over the years especially if you let it be theirs. Use their name along with the plant and compliment them on the crop even if you're doing most of the work to make it successful. Our married daughter now has a strawberry patch at their home from plants she selected at 10 years old along with a bunch of other kitchen garden perennials. During her teen years she had lost interest in gardening, but now that she has her own "bit of earth" is hooked on gardening again drawing on childhood experiences in the garden with me & her grandfather. -They remember the little bits of gardening information you talk about while in the garden & will repeat it back to you or you'll hear them telling someone else about what you did together. They soon become the experts... Also if you use a bit of child-like imagination to call things it makes it more interesting to them. Spreading used coffee grounds is feeding the worms breakfast or smoothies. Looking for ripe tomatoes is hunting for jewels. Looking for zucchini big enough to grill slices for dinner can be hunting for man zucchini or burger zucchini. If you know you have a whopper cucumber or zucchini in there ask them to find the giant hiding in the garden & say you'll keep watch to make sure it's safe to pick... Then go help them because they're scratchy. Things like that help them have fun while working with you. It's good for me to keep in mind not to work my teen son too hard though he is a great laborer especially with structures, compost, hauling organic matter, etc, and enjoys taking photos of plants & insects in the garden, but has no interest in playing in it now. He respects the garden spaces I've taken over for plants and comes to tell me he's damaged something while mowing or playing ball with friends. He is also good with any younger visitors like cousins helping them be careful around my flowering plants or telling them what's okay to pick or not based on what I've told him in the past. Can you tell I'm enthusiastic about kids in the garden? Enjoy the garden with them most of all & pass it on to the next generation. Corrine

dcarch - I'm sure my 6 year old grandson would be thrilled if I would make a solar oven, but I'm not sure I'll go to that much bother (maybe another time). Thanks for the input though. lou - thanks for the ideas, those were really cute. katiec - thanks for the playdough recipe--that's a great idea. coconut - I'm trying to decide if I want to deal with painting messes. The ages are 2, 2 1/2, 3, 6 & 7. They would probably love it though. Maybe they could paint at the kids picnic table in the garage. :) grainlady - thanks for the link--looks like a lot of great ideas. Thanks so much everyone--lots of great ideas.

We went camping for almost all our vacations and trips for years, and had many traditions. My kids and I had almost as much fun getting ready for our camping trips as we did on the trips themselves. My kids didn't get sugary snacks and junk food at home, so before our camping trips we went to the grocery store and I let them pick out the sugary cereals they wanted to eat while camping, and other special treats. They are voracious readers, so picking our library books for the trip was a huge deal, and making sure they had flashlights for reading in bed! We never spent much time in our campsite during the daytime - we always camped near the beach, the lake, the river, or some tourist attraction, and we were gone swimming, hiking, etc. during the day. We almost always brought our bikes along, so our kids liked to bike around the campground. Often there were other kids at the campground, so when the kids were younger they'd find playmates at the campground. If you'll be staying at a campground where there will be other kids, it might be fun to bring along a long jump rope. I would sometimes find books at the local library for the kids to learn things like origami or braiding hair, and they could do that together at the picnic table. A puzzle might be fun for the family. Camping trips are great times for kids to do "classic" games like marbles, hopscotch, barrel-of-monkeys, etc. At night we played cards, board games, sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows, and caught fireflies. A fire provided hours of entertainment - scrounging up wood to burn, starting the fire, poking the fire, putting more twigs and wood on the fire, poking the fire some more.... Have fun on your trip!

Many of my ideas were hit by frugalwallflower and katlan. Personally, I don't like giving books unless the person is an avid reader who reads books many times over or are a book collector and you know what they want. Except of course something like coloring books or if they like the crossword puzzle books, word search* or something. Otherwise, books are the poster child for one-use clutter if they get used once. Why teach kids that? Cash is still a great gift. Gift cards are a distant second or third since so many gift cards just don't get used. Do you bake? With your handle, I assume you do. That age group loves cookies, bars, Krispie bars, brownies and much more. Nothing to be ashamed of giving a gift of food. Or mix it in with some of the other ideas. The real young with a coloring book, crayons or colored pencils and a plateful of goodies? Few wouldn't be in hog heaven. Younger would probably like Old Maid cards, and I don't know what classic board games go for these days but there might be an option too. The youngest ones should be very easy to stay under the $10 mark, even under $5 if you want to go the purchased present way. Older ones? Well, keep in mind they might be approaching driving age. Something for the car if they have one. A key fob, first aid kit or even tools. If they have a car, floor mats are usually needed. It's late to start now but if you're near Menards or Ace Hardware you can buy a lot of stuff free after rebate or super cheap after rebate. Examples, 25' tape measure, wrench sets, screwdriver sets, hats, t-shirts, etc. Flashlights are a great gift too. The little LED ones that go on a keyring are handy and useful. A decent flashlight is usable by most anyone. Other ideas for the older, near driving age, is an ice scraper for northern climate or sunshade for southern. Both can be had for a couple dollars. I'd say fire up the stove and oven. And look for some things they might need or find useful. I might sound like a broken record at times but I really believe in avoiding the trash presents, meaning the ones that are a waste of money since they won't be used, or won't be used more than once and will just wind up in the dumpster. Food and cash, most always get used and are still appreciated far more than the stores and "shopping addicted" want people to believe. *One year as part of the gift I made up some word search puzzles and gave to the kids and had a little contest. I made the younger ones easier puzzles than the older ones. WordPerfect had a feature in it that let you set up the puzzle and it would fill in random letters in the blank spaces so it was easy. I had a 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prize of $3, $2 an $1. (there were 3 kids so each got a token cash prize and I planned a small gift for each so each actually got the intended prize, but it was down as a prize for winning. They loved it.