I love my readers! I asked my Facebook followers for their best camping with children suggestions in case it rains and my reader Christine Green sent me all these amazing lists she has been putting together through the years! Christine and I started to chat a few weeks ago when I posted on Facebook about our first family camping trip EVER!!

Camping With Children

I love how fun our Facebook community is! If you have not liked our Facebook page yet click on the post below to do it now and welcome to the community! We’re fun people but I’m suspicious to say that. 😉

As I mentioned, we went camping for the first time as a family last month and WE LOVED IT!! We are blessed to live in the beautiful Canadian province of Prince Edward Island and let me just say this: It is stunning!! It’s absolutely beautiful here.

Camping With Children

You Can Have Fun Camping With Children in Your Backyard Too!

Before we go on our second camping trip, we decided to have a family camp out in our backyard to try out our new tent. Good thing is that it is really wheater protected because it did rain in the middle of the night! Here is how much fun we had pitching our tent in our backyard! This is a fun way to have a staycation too if you can’t travel anywhere else. By the way, this was on a Monday night. 😉

I can’t wait to go camping again this week! Very differently than the first time, I’m now feeling more prepared especially after all the suggestions and advice I got from Christine this morning. That is why I have to give her all the credit for this blog post!

Here are Christine’s suggestions and advice for camping with children if it rains!

How to Be Prepared For Camping With Children In The Rain.

  • Be prepared for rain when you set up. Don’t wait “just in case it won’t.” All this costs you (if you have the stuff) is an extra few minutes of set-up time.
  • Proper placement of tent: don’t put your tent somewhere all the rain will collect and go to.
  • Water can fill up between a tarp and tent floor, and the tent will let it in. If you have a TARP or ground cloth, put it INSIDE the TENT. Check out: http://scoutmastercg.com/keep-your-camping-gear-dry/
  • Skip the tarp beneath and put it inside. If you do this, maybe bring your doormat from home to put outside the tent door. Simple things like that can really help make things more comfortable.
  • A tarp “porch” or ceiling outside the tent door will help with getting in/out during rain.
  • A little tote or something for shoes/boots can be nice. Put shoes on the ground, place a tote upside down over it (tote is reusable later) shoes are dry and bug-free. The tote will still be clean inside.
  • A covered eating space is always beneficial, not only to the food and comfort but for being able to do activities outside of the tent.
  • Keep any firewood as dry as you can. My father keeps his in a tote, but he “RVs” and is more of an “easy camper now”. We might use a sturdy trash bag or small tarp over ours.
  • Tarp, tarp, tarp!

Fun Activities For Camping With Children When it Rains

  1. Do it anyway, if you have enough changes of clothes or the right gear. What’s a little rain? Stay warm enough and change those socks as often as possible/needed.
  2. In the tent: Read aloud and tell stories. If you have a small dry erase board you can play games on it.
  3. Board games: if you take them are best suited for picnic tables or the ground. A tent is a hard place to “game”, so much movement in a confined space.
  4. Pretty much any camp or nature craft project can be done under the protection of a tarp or even in a tent.
  5. If you take paper things like printed activities for kids, your meal plan, just in case information (first aid, phone numbers, allergies, maps, local places info) put it all in a binder with page protectors if you can. It can help keep it dry. But you can also use dry erase markers on them and reuse it time and again.
  6. A printed tic-tac-toe board or scavenger hunt, mazes, dot-to-dot, bingo. You can even use small marshmallows as bingo markers! Oh, my!


Camping With Children

Camping With Children General Advice

  1. Have a meal plan, prepare what food you can ahead of time. But if you have any clocks, phones, timers… set them. Raining or not, camping is the best time to lose track of time. The last thing you want to do is to wait until someone, especially a child, decides they are **hungry** to start making food. Meals can take longer to prepare while cooking.
  2. Gather wood when setting up. Gather fire materials should be part of the setup if someone is taking care of the tent, the other can go and collect tinder and dry wood with the kids. If you have a wagon (we use it for collecting firewood), bucket, bag or whatever great. If not, then frequent trips will help wear everyone down. 😉
  3. Rain ponchos can suck, forget the ponchos. Unless you have no choice, but a person will stay more dry and warm in a sleeved covering than a poncho. Or unless they are sweater ponchos, but still… make sure you have good rain jackets and rubber boots for the kids.
  4. Little ones might enjoy sleeping with a hat on, sometimes I do too. Even if it’s not too chilly, it can feel worse at 3 am.
  5. And of course, avoid any eating inside a tent. Or any leftovers on clothing in there as well. If you must eat inside of a space, consider your car. I’d rather deal with cleaning a car, then fending off bugs, raccoons, and even larger animals attracted to food in a tent.
  6. Mosquitoes are attracted to old sweat, gross but apparently true. Doing a good wash up right after or before dinner will help when the mosquitoes come out. For during the day, I highly recommend Bug Off! a natural blend of essential oils that are not harmful to your family and keeps the bugs away – really!
  7. Camping can be as simple or complicated, as “glamped” or rugged as you want. This is your experience, enjoy it in the way you can.

Keep Safe, Hydrated, Warm, Dry, and Happy!

More Resources:

Family Camping Checklist:
http://www.adventuroo.com/family-camping-checklist/
Printables for Mom and Planning:
http://www.frugalcouponliving.com/camping-printable/
Free Printables for Pre-Schoolers:
http://www.homeschoolcreations.net/2011/06/camping-preschool-pack-free-preschool/
Scavenger Hunts: (if you put it in a page protector, you can use stickers, and they’ll come off for reuse)
http://www.theresourcefulmama.com/summer-scavenger-hunts-free-printables/
Oh, and camping is a good time for “God Binoculars”. It’s the last thing in the post, but so cool. Not that it works like actual binoculars, but it’s a great lesson for camping and watching. And then play I-spy with them. http://faithsprouts.blogspot.com/2016/05/ot-hero-joseph.html
Don’t forget to take nature journals with you! This will give the kids hours of entertainment observing and recording the beautiful things they will encounter, sun or rain!



YOUR TURN: What are your favorite tips on camping with children? Please share it below in the comments.

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About christinegreen

I was in the Army for 2 years and my husband for 6 years, this is how we met. I'm a stay at home mom of 4 kids. Ages: 8, 6, 4 and 2. That was God's plan, not ours, LOL. I am passionate about homeschooling, child-led adventures, frugality, and life!