Jen - who was it (was it you?), that had the idea for kids of finding animal tracks and then taking plaster of paris, mixing it up with some food coloring, then pouring it into the tracks and letting it set until it hardens.

Always thought that would be a real adventure for young kids.

Dale

Jen,
The place we go does arts and crafts, scavenger hunts, face painting, jello eating contest, races in the water on tubes, rafts etc, races in pot. sacks, and some others, but that is only on a special weekend such as holidays, their annual festival, and 2 other times a yr. The kids love it and are so competitive, they put them in different age groups though to make it fair for all. The kids would hang out in the store all day waiting for the next event to happen. They all love candy bingo. Hay rides is always a lot of fun too.
Lynda

I never got to do those fun things! We almost always camped at Very primative places when I was a kid and we always camped on off peak days with my kids. We had hikes, always had coloring books and/or paper. Always had cards and great go fish and crazy eight or poker games going. It was all in wait for the bon fire and marshmellow roast at night as well as the singing time. There was, I'm sure more then one poor wild animal that was terrified away from our campsite by my families vertion of 'There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly'. We had fun swimming and fishing and just making as much noise and mud pies as we could. Seeing who could scare the wits out of who with scarey stories! My Dad and Uncle always told us were they where going to fish and we where not to go they way in our noisey play, but always welcome if we wanted to be quiet around them. We always managed to find other kids at the campgrounds if we where in a more populor or mainstrean campground. I don't remember eating to many veggies or being told to shower that much and bed time came when we fell asleep or close to it at the fire. We always had bags of pebbles or pinecones or something to bring home and it was fun to lay on the ground to look at bugs or small crittors. My brother was the best frog catcher. Mom always made him turn them loose when we left for home. I was the only one, but I always had 1,2,3 books tucked into my bag. There still is nothing like finding a good spot in the wild to read a good book. My brother always had tiny cars and toy people or what ever and he would spend hours in the dirt making little towns and villages with sticks and mud. One year he had a very cool tunnel system and it was hard for him to leave behind when it was time. Ok now I want to go camping again NOW hurry up Summer!

Hi Jen!

SPUD ! a fun game played with a very soft ball that you can still toss a fair distance. The kids are all standing next to you. You will start the game. You will now toss the ball up in the air and call out the name of one person who will now be IT. No one knows who's name you will call.
Everyone is ready to run away in all directions once you toss the ball up into the air. But, once you toss it, at the same time, you yell the name of one of the kids. That kid will stop in his tracks and have to catch or retrieve the ball. So, while everyone is running away, that kid catches the ball and screams SPUD ! (it used to be played with a potato) can you imagine how that would hurt?
Use a soft spongy ball.
After screaming SPUD, everyone stops in their tracks.
THe kid who has the ball seeks out the closest person and takes four large steps. spelling S. P. U. D. with each step toward the persone they will "TAG" with the ball by tossing it at them. The person frozen in their steps cannot move or flinch, or duck. They have to wait til the person tries to hit them with the ball. Once they are hit.
They get to toss it up into the air and yell out another person's name. Lot's of fun! You would be amazed at how many times everone wants to flee as fast and in different directions away from the center once the ball is tossed up; only to have to stop in their retreat and run to get the ball before everyone else beats feet.

Wow! I hope that wasn't too long winded.... ouch...
I'm such a jabber jaws...

Happy New Year Jen, and all you'uns !

CROWS AND CRANES!

Divide the group up into two halves. This could be done by having them line up and count off Crow, crane, crow, crane, etc. Once you have them split up, the crows line up side by side facing the cranes. (who are also side by side) YOU tell everyone on the crow side that they are all crows. Tell everyone on the crane side they are all cranes. Stand at the end of the two lines facing each other. Now, several feet behind each row is a safe line they can cross over and not be tagged. YOu will start the game by yelling either crow or crane. If you yell crow, the crows are IT and have to tag a crane before they can cross their safety line. If You yell Crane, the CRanes are IT and have to tag a crow before they can cross their safety line. whew! ok, after your first run, let's say you yelled CROWS! the crows tag a few cranes and their number grows. Try to keep it even. But eventually, you will have a huge flock of either crows or cranes bearing down on only two on the other side. What a blast.

The fun comes when you really milk out what you're going to call.... really hold the "R" sound....
once they face each other say: "Crrrrr-rrrr-rrr- anes !"

Once we got another person nearby to be the crrrow or crrrane yeller. He really got into it.

Warning! There is one drawback. As you might guess, kids are not sure if they are going to pursue and tag, or flee and run to cross their safety line. So, several kids will run into each other not sure if they are to run away or run for someone. Sometimes, a head knock or tooth jarring can occur. hmmm.... think about it. I always had a blast. Once they run into eachother a few times, they think pretty hard about if they are a crrrow or a crrrane.

Maybe test it out first? Then, take it tweak it?

Great ideas here! Keep them coming please! I try to do different things in the campground every summer. For sports or games I've been doing waterballoon volleyball and water relay races but am ready for a change!

Another good one everyone loves is greased watermelon, even the adults had a turn at it. You grease the watermelon with vaseline and get into the lake. You have to toss the melon to the other person on your team without dropping it, it gets a lot of laughs and is pretty hard not to drop. Pick out light ones so it isn't too hard to toss. Also can be done with eggs, grease them up and watch the fun begin.
Lynda

Hot potatoes is fun. And egg toss, but it's messy.

Shoe relay races and or dress up relay is fun too. The dress up relay is easy to devide into male and female sides. Boys have things adult men might wear such as old hat, tie (pre tied) huge old shoes, slacks, sport coat. Girls can be an old formal type dress and shoes neckless and gloves and high heels. As long as there are the same amount of items per team, all the items are in an old suitcase or ? The first personon each team runs to the box or? and gets fully dressed up, returns to the start line and undresses so the next person can get dressed up and run to the box and undress up and then run back and tag the next person who runs forword and dresses up and so on. Don't forget your camera this is very photoginic. Or if you don't want to go male/female, lumber jack or such is fun too.

If a garden hose is avalable beach ball fights are fun the first team to get the ball across the others teams line with only their hose wins they also must gaurd against the other team getting the ball over their own line with only the hose.

For sitting games try being the last person to laugh in a joke telling contest. Of course for this game ya need a few really dumb joke books on hand to help those who draw a blank on good jokes.

cracker stackin' How high can you stack soda crackers?

Also, have each kid grab five crackers and stuff them in their mouths at the same time, when you blow a whistle.
The first one to "whistle" is the winner. great fun.

Write a short story or journey of a camper. leave the nouns all blank. For each blank, have the kids come up unbeknownst to them a noun. If your story has twenty nouns, write down 20 nouns from the kids. Now, put them in a hat and pass the hat around the circle to each kid.
You now begin reading" Jen's camping Adventure weekend"
that you of course wrote. Each time you come to a blank space, ( a noun) you have a kid pick a folded piece of paper out of the hat and insert the noun. It goes round and round and gets pretty funny.

(ie) Jen woke up early in the morning excited to begin her camping trip. She began checking out the car to make sure it was all prepared for the trip. To the engine, she added__________ A kid pulls out the word "A hermit crab"
then passes the hat to the next person. You read on:
"She then hooked up ___________ and _________ and even________ to the trailer hitch and was very happy at the hard work accomplished so far. fill in your own blanks and on and on...

screamin' ball toss. For a large group, bring a beach ball. Every time the ball in in the air, everyone yells as loud as possible. When the ball is caught by someone in the group, immediate sudden silence. Everyone stops. A real giggler. You can fake tossing it up at times. As the ball goes round and round up in the air, from person to person, everyone is hollering. Sometimes, long yells and sometimes short yells or sharp burst as it goes from one person to another quickly. Fun in the water, too.

hoola- hoop frisbee golf....
Bring nine hoolahoops and set up a course like a golf course out over a grassy area. From a start area, each golfer tosses a frisbee into the hoola-hoop to score. keep score how many tosses it takes to get around the course.

campfire race!

Have small sets of small kindling set up 50 ft. away from each small fire pit. EAch team of two people, Usually an adult and a child (due to the matches) stands by their fire pit and when you give the signal, they scurry to their pile of little kindling chips, twigs, etc. and hurry back quickly and build a little fire. You have two stakes hammered in the ground with a piece of "TWINE" tied between them. The teams put their kindling under the twine and the object is to build a fire and be the first team to burn through and "BREAK" the twine.

Think about this one awhile. Fire and certain groups are right out.... eh?
I always liked it, though.

Wow! Great ideas! Some of these will definitely work! PLEASE keep them coming! My activity schedule last year looked like this:

Monday -- (my day off) order out night from local deli/pizza place

Tuesday -- arts and crafts, waterballoon volleyball, campfire

Wednesday -- story time, nature walk, nature crafts, ice cream social, bingo

Thursday -- beach relay races, bike decorating contest, talent show

Friday -- arts and crafts, sandcastle building contest, kayak races, bingo

Saturday -- hunt of some kind (treasure, scavenger, etc.), recycling craft.

I am looking to make some changes this year. I know it seems early but now is when I do all of my planning! Thanks again for all these terrific ideas!

Jerry, it seems you may have missed your calling! You would do well with a job like mine! In fact, it looks like you could probably take my job with all of these ideas!

Thanks for the compliment... gawrsh..

Ever play the Name game to get everyone introduced? fun for kids who are old enough to use their memory...

several people at your campground activity who have never ever met before. You introduce yourself and say one word about what you like to do. Then, it goes to the next persone who says their name and one word of their passtime.
on and on.

ie, jerry-hiking, now the next person introduces themselves as Jen-canoeing,Jerry Hiking...
The third person is Dale... "DAle fishing, Jen canoeing, Jerry hiking, fourth person is Lynda.
"Lynda camping, Dale fishing, Jen canoeing, Jerry hiking"
as she points to each person. People can now move around in the circle to really mess it up. Believe me, everyone is now introduced!!~ have fun, "Lynda Camping", "Dale
Fishing", "Jen Canoeing" and the rest y'all...

Jerry, we play this game with our high school camping club students when we take them camping! It's nice because our club cuts across all of the little cliques and we get kids with all backgrounds. This does mean that often the don't all know eachother though! We add a little twist though. The word you use to describe yourself has to begin with the first letter of your name!

Cool! Have fun this summer!

Well, off to Las Vegas! Meeting old friends who are renewing their vows (good excuse to fly to Vegas) ha ha
I just hope they don't use the Elvis Chapel or some hokie place. Either way, should be a hoot!

I was part of the ground crew several years ago when my boys went on a Boy Scout Troop camping trip. They traveled 50 miles down the Colorado River from the Hoover Dam in kayaks they made (with the dads). One night, on a sandy, rocky beach, we made up a game we called "Top That". The point was to stack a rock on top of your opponent's without toppling the stack. The rocks placed were in increasingly smaller size. The last one would sometimes be reallly small or tall and pointed.

Barb

Be wary of those activities organized by the campgrounds. Oh, I mean this in a good-natured way, as they mean well. Last summer we camped at a state resort. We found out they were having some kids' activities on the weekend evenings. What we didn't know is that it was the first weekend ever for this program and while the two naturalists who ran it were well intentioned and nice, things didn't quite work out as expected.

First, we played "five senses" type games. It was as though the two twenty-something naturalists had never associated with children - one game had a blindfolded child waving a stick around in the air while the other kids chased him (yikes) and another had the kids lobbing rocks at each other (you're supposed to toss gently...hah.)

Then we went on a moonlight nature hike. One of the kids' parents spoiled it by driving behind us in his pickup truck (because he couldn't walk far) with his lights on thinking he was doing us a favor. First we went to look for beavers in the river - none showed up, but plenty of mosquitoes did. Then we went to a pond to hunt frogs; none of them showed up either. The naturalists swore they'd scouted the area for poison ivy, but I still insisted on washing the kids' arms and legs with soap and water when we got back, itchy with bug bites.

I hope subsequent programs were better and that the naturalists remembered to bring a can of bug repellent.

pkock, thanks for input! Maybe it's an advantage that I am nowhere near a twenty something, am an art teacher, and am very experienced with kids with special needs! The reason I posted the question is I WORK in a campground as an activities director for the summer and am looking for new ideas! Actually, a night hike is not a bad idea but bears could be a problem!

A fun night activity I always thought was: FLASHLIGHT TAG

Each person gets a flashlight and uses it to hide out.
turning it on as infrequently as possible as you stalk out others to "TAG" with your flashlight beam. Once you turn yours on, you to search for others, you are giving yourself away. Too much light and everyone will tag you.
Team little ones up with adults for safety.

Another version of this is hide and seek. One person hides as everyone else is back in camp. Pick a camp leader, an adult (over 20 something) like Jen and let them go out and hide. After two minutes, everyone at camp breaks up and tries to find her with their flashlights.
Make boundries for this game. Please please... some kids will get carried away and take off to who knows where.
Again, team up little ones with adults or older children.

TAG ! Your it!!!

pkok--too funny! Kind of like the Saturday Night Live skit where Dan Akroyd talks about what a great Christmas gift a bag of broken glass is for kids.

other activities--anybody tried letterboxing?