It never fails, when you go camping your kids are probably going to complain about being bored. With a little preparation ahead of time, you can make the most of your camping trip and spend some great quality time with your children.

Nature Hikes

Some of the best memories I have camping as a child are of going on nature hikes. Some of the state campgrounds have beautifully maintained trails that are great for taking your children on nature hikes. Give your children a list of things to look for on their hike. If they are young you can use pictures instead of words for the items they are to find. You can also bring along guidebooks that show birds that are native to the area you are visiting. Children love to identify different types of wildlife. You can also get guidebooks for identifying local trees and wildflowers. There are even books and charts for identifying animal tracks.

Lawn Games

Camping trips are a great time to dust off those lawn games you never get around to playing at home. A current favorite is Ladder Ball. You can pick this game up for about $20 at Walmart. You take turns throwing balls attached to ropes at small ladders. You keep score according to which rung of the ladder the balls and rope wrap around. Kids love this game and will play it over and over again (teens and adults love playing it too!). Horsehoes are also an old family favorite and are easy to take along with you.

Board Games

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Valentine’s Day is a fun holiday for kids. They love to make arts and crafts projects, and there are all sorts of great crafts to choose from for Valentine’s Day.

This valentine mouse project is for preschoolers or young elementary aged children. It is a great opportunity for them to practice their shapes and using scissors.

Supplies Needed:

Grey, black, white, and pink construction paper
Scissors
Elmer’s glue*
Pencil
Small pink pom pom

* Note: You can also use a glue stick for this project, although you might need Elmer’s glue to get the pom pom to stick.

For the mouse’s face, you need to draw one large heart for the head, and two small hearts for the ears. Trace them on to the grey construction paper and let your child cut them out.

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If you are doing preschool at home, or even if you are just doing some extra preschool activities with your child from time to time, you probably have a lot of papers and craft supplies taking up space on your countertops and closet shelves.

It was hard for me to get excited about doing preschool activities without being organized first, so I set out to go through all of our supplies and set up an organized storage system that works for me.

Flash Cards and Card Games

I store all of my boys’ flash cards and card games in a small plastic storage container. This container is kept up in a closet where only I can get it down for them. It only took one time of me putting all the cards back in the boxes to realize they couldn’t handle getting into this container on their own!

Art Supplies

Most of our art supplies are stored where my boys can get to them. I purchased a three drawer plastic storage container that works great for art supplies. One drawer holds their crayons, colored pencils, scissors, and glue. The second drawer stores a variety of painting supplies. The third drawer stores miscellaneous items, such as felt pieces for the felt board and plastic letters for the magnetic board. This plastic container is kept near the kitchen table where my boys do their art projects. This keeps it within easy reach when they want to color, paint, or do some other art project.

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