camping party

[MNmammaof2]

My son is turning 7yrs old this June and he wants to have a camping party in our backyard. Anyone have any suggestions on this?? I have to figure out invitations and how many boys is a good number. thanks

[Coll]

I'm not into camping much so my suggestion is food related.

You'll need hotdogs and crescent rolls.
Take a crescent roll and wrap it around a hotdog leaving one end sticking out. Bake according to the directions on the roll pkg. When done, use a toothpick and ketchup to give each "camper" a face. These will look like they are in a sleeping bag.

Or you can just go the old route and do hotdogs and marshmallows on sticks over the fire.

For banana boats- (this makes 1 boat so adjust accordingly)
1 banana
4 squares from a Hershey bar
mini marshmallows
piece of aluminum foil
1 sharp knife
Plenty of adult supervision

Using the knife split the banana still in skin length wise, don't cut thru other side of skin. Open slightly and stuff with chocolate and marshmallows. Wrap in foil, palce into coals. Takes about 5 minutes depending on the temp of the coals.

Look for nature sounds cds too. Adn ask for one or two parents to stay over night too.

[ajrsmom]

I would say no more than 7 boys + the birthday boy.

Have to have hot dogs and S'mores. Chips and trail mix for snacks.

You need a good ghost story teller for the nigth around the campfire.

Instead of goodie bags, you could give cheap binoculars for bird watching or star gazing.

OR you could have a telescope for all to use at night under the stars.

**********

Another idea is to do a camouflage theme. Face painting camo for all of them. Binoculars, canteens........

Are you wanting to play games or ???

I still like the ghost stories and telescope for this one too.

Please let us know what you decide on!


Tami

[barbszy]

This activity was originally posted by VicRae in our Scouting forum:

There is an idea to teach the boys how to build a camp fire. Use this for their snack. Cups of juice with a straw for the water bucket. Then use gramph crackers for the base or ground cover. Then coconut for the tender and some candy corn for the flames and top with stick pretzels for the bigger logs. Not sure if I got that right or not, but it's the general idea.

I think you should probably put the stick pretzels on top of the graham crackers, and THEN the coconut and candy corn. But it looks like a fun snack.

Before I invited kids camping, I would check on how much tent space there is. You should have an adult sleeping outside with those kids (or in a separate tent, but still outside) for safety reasons! 7-year-olds are still very young and some may get scared in the night. So there should also be an adult IN the house in case a child wants to come inside and sleep. But you need to have tent space for all the kids you ask, so check that first!

I don't know if ghost stories at this age would be a great idea (due to the fright factor) unless you do a "pretend campout" where they don't actually stay overnight but do some camping type activities and then are picked up around 9 PM or a little later, so that they are doing some "in the dark" fun.

Flashlight tag is a fun game. They could receive flashlights as their party favors. Use a sharpie to write each child's name on the flashlight.

It's also fun to play with walkie-talkies. Maybe you can borrow enough of them that each child can use one. I know that our neighbors have a set, and so do we, and if we set them on the same channel we can have all 4 going at once.

I have found "camo" paper plates and cups at the party store. Those would be fun to use for the cake & drinks.

Sounds like a really fun party idea! My kids are all winter birthdays, so we've never been able to have a campout party--but I'm sure they would enjoy it. Have fun, and tell us how it turns out and what you decided to do!

[VicRae]

If you're going for an Army theme you could build an obstacale course for them to run through.

Or if it's just a camping theme. Try doing a treasure hunt to find things that are needed for a camping trip.

Another game could be a memory game. Such as I'm taking _________ on my camping trip or I'm taking a trip to fill in place and I'm taking ________. Each person has to say what the person said before him and add one more item each time. The winner would be the one who could remember the most things. Or need not have a winner.

Another game could be remembering what is in a backpack. Use a backpack and place 8 -10 things inside. Then, have the things placed on a table for five minutes for the boys to look at. Then put inside the backpack. Then have the boys write the items on a sheet of paper. Give a prize to the ones who have the most correct items written out.

Have fun and hope this helps some.

[VicRae]

Here is a web site with a lot of games and activities too.

http://seedsofknowledge.com/treehouse.htm

Have a nice birthday party.

[MNmammaof2]

thank you all so much for the ideas! I love the snack idea, we're going to give that a try. I have the invitations figured out and I also have the food figured out. Right now i'm tryin to figure out the number of kids/parents and what to do with them. I know my son wants to do a scavanger hunt and a night walk with flashlights and flashlight tag. and cook smores

[Amanda]

Make sure you check out the following ideas on FC:

Backyard Camp ***

Camp Journal (craft idea)

Camping Breakfasts

Camping With Kids

Camping With Kids - Part 2


Decorated Visors for Kids (craft idea)

Backyard Discovery Zone

Preparing Your Backyard For Summer Play

Preparing Your Backyard For Summer Play Part 2

Family : Leisure : Warm Weather

[MNmammaof2]

Thank you all so very very much for the ideas! I will definately let you know how it goes. I know our invitiations will be done soon cuz we have to give them out on the last day of school next week. I'll let ya know how it goes!

[MNmammaof2]

9 boys in tents! we already made the invitations and going to hand them out last day of school (his party is june 29th). his invitations are little tents that you open up and has all the information on them. We have a few ideas for games and activites but i'm stumped on decorations.

we have to do this party as cheap as possible.
here are our ideas:
each activity and game the boys will recieve a colored pony bead for that activity. for a game, if they won that game they will recieve a glittered bead. we are going to have leather or some type of string for them to put the beads on along with a name tag.

games:
water balloon toss
Make birdhouses and paint them ($1 a peice at craft store)
Worm in dirt dig (gummy worms burried in powdered chocolate milk mix and use only their mouth to retrieve the worms.)
Flashlight tag
Pin the flames on the campfire
sleepingbag races
Make white lunchbag luminaries (when done put them by their tent to find tent better in dark)
and maybe a 3 legged race.

I found the perfect cake, its 2 layers and its got bugs crawling out of it and everything.
I am still stumped on decorations. Food we were going to do hotdogs and something over the fire or on the grill and do smores (maybe but since we have cake i dont know)

The party is from 5pm to noon the next day. do you think thats too much for 7yr olds to do? I was thinking of doing the birdhouses first so they have time to dry while we do the rest of the games and such.

What do you think???
Thanks