Five Outdoor Games For Kids to Play

Venturing into the outdoors is a fun and memorable experience for both yourself and your family even though there can be lots of hard work that sometimes goes into it. Having a few fun games ready to enjoy will help keep your children occupied when the novelty of just "being in nature" wears off.

I have put together five easy and fun games for children to play while camping.

1. Flashlight Limbo - This is a fun game when it gets dark out. Two people simply hold flashlights across from each other with the beams facing each other to make a light pole and one person has to limbo under the light pole. The light pole gets lowered each time until it is so low the person cannot get under it anymore. Whoever can flashlight limbo the lowest, wins.

2. Alphabet Nature Hunt - Beginning with the letter "A", you can start off by picking something to find and once that item is found it's the next person's turn and they pick something that starts with a "B". For example, "T" could be a toad, "D" could be a duck. This is a game that can take up half a day if played right and it challenges the children and the rest of the family to be creative with their objects.

3. I Spy - There are always so many things to see when camping including nature, birds, other family's tents, garbage (unfortunately), etc. One person says I spy and describes the object either in color or location and the other people have to guess what it is. Whoever guesses correctly wins and it becomes their turn to be the "I spy person".

4. Picture Scavenger Hunt - If you have the money to buy a few disposable cameras this is a great activity that can be played throughout the whole trip. Create a scavenger list of things to see while you're on your camping trip. Everyone gets a copy of the list and a camera that they can keep with them and when they see something on the list such as a ladybug, chipmunk, etc, they take a picture of it. After you come home and develop everyone's camera then you see what everyone found and who got pictures of the most things on the list. These photos are great to use in scrapbooks later too.

5. Tell a Single Sentence Story - This is best played sitting around the campfire or in the tent if it happens to rain. One person starts the story with one sentence. The next person adds a sentence and so on. You don't have to write it down but it's always fun to write the story and pull it out years later for a great memory reminder.

Being in the outdoors can be such a great bonding experience and one of the least expensive holidays you can take with your children. It allows them to learn a bit about nature whilst experience the outdoor natural adventureland.