For my daughter's 9th birthday she wants to have a campout. We are getting a new travel trailer so she can have 4 friends sleep in the trailer with us. The plan is to start on a Friday night after school with these 4 girls. The afternoon of the Saturday she will invite the remaining girls in her class (about 8, I think) to meet us at the campground for an afternoon birthday party.

Need ideas???

So far I was thinking we could make foam sun visors.

By Jewlz on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 12:37 am:

how about a treasure hunt.... where u ight hide things around the camp site or the park ... or m aybe some clues to lead them to a treasure of surprises .....
look at this url i thinkits wonderful to help with planning a party while camping. http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/camping.html

Give each child a disposable camera and spiral notebook at the start of the trip to make notes and take pictures of special activities.and make a special memory book of the weekend...

http://www.kidspartyfun.com/pages/themes/campout.html

By Tunnia on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 08:49 am:

When our dd turned 8 we did this. We had them bring their bikes with then and took them on a bike trail (dh and I took our bikes too so we could do this), we went on a nature hike/scavenger hunt (make the lists on your computer ahead of time with things like mushroom, dead tree, animal track, animal home, etc), we set up a badmitton net and horseshoes (they only played with those for a short time), and had plenty of fishing poles and bait. We told them to wear play clothes that could get dirty and we basically let them play and have a good time. Oh, and we went down to the water, looked for flat rocks and then spent about a half an hour teaching them how to skip rocks (they loved that). Unfortunately, my dd's birthday is at a time of year when the water is still a bit chilly for swimming, but if it's warm enough during your dd's party I'd have them bring swimsuits as well and take them swimming. We let them cook hotdogs and make s'mores over the fire. The kids had a ball and boy were they filthy, but they all agreed it was the best party!

Have fun with your party!

By Monicamomof3 on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 08:50 am:

smores?

By Karen~moderator on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 08:55 am:

I think the treasure hunt sounds like a GREAT idea!

By Andyjoy on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 03:45 pm:

Monicamomof3--are you unfamiliar with s'mores?

You toast a marshmallow and layer it with part of a Hershey's bar between two graham cracker squares. Everyone who tries them wants some more (s'more).

By Andyjoy on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 03:51 pm:

If you're looking for a craft idea, you could press flowers/leaves to make suncatchers or bookmarks.

For a party favor, you could give out inexpensive magnifying glasses, compasses, waterbottles, binoculars, etc.

By Paulas on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 04:56 pm:

Another great s'more idea...we buy the chocolate peanut butter in the summer time. Roast a marshmallow and place it on a graham cracker that has this spread on it...yum yum!

By Kaye on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 06:06 pm:

For smores we buy chocolate covered cookies (think fudge stripes, animal treasures, etc) and use those..yumm!

When my son did his campout party, we just did it in the back yard. We did the campfire thing, sack races, I made cupcakes with pretzles to look like fires (i used fruit roll ups for flames).

YOu could do flashlight tag. I love the compass mapping type idea. In girl scouts we do something where each kid writes clues to find something around camp, then you pick the best 5 or 6, then you give a copy of one to the girls, when they find the first one, there is an envelope with the next clue.