Crafty, quiet play ideas for kids at the campground

Trying to keep your little ones entertained when camping or caravanning can be quite tricky.

Nicolle Woodward, from Little Bugs Sensory Play Bases is an early childhood educator and mum of 3, currently travelling around Australia in her caravan, with some great ideas for a little family quiet time ideas. Here are her top activities to keep the little ones entertained...

Whether you are living on the road, on a weekend getaway or in the throws of the annual camping holiday, these activities are sure to entertain. Especially in those moments where you just want to sit back, relax and enjoy some downtime.

Water play

Water play has so many benefits for kids of all ages. From assisting with sensory development and fine motor skills through scooping, pouring, splashing, and squeezing, to cognitive growth through problem-solving, and early numeracy concepts such as volume and capacity, to emotional regulation through the calming effects of focus and attention. Water play can take shape in a variety of ways – washing baby dolls, using measuring cups to scoop and pour or adding in some simple cooking utensils to ignite imaginative play.

Sensory rice and/or pasta

Coloured rice and pasta are the perfect base for any imaginative sensory activity! We love to incorporate sensory rice and pasta into our rotation of activities, using the base to hide speech cards, picture cards, figurines, or magnet tiles. An easy sensory rice set up is introducing measuring cups, spoons and different sized containers into the space and allowing your children to experiment with volume and capacity as they scoop and pour the coloured rice into the various containers.

This makes for a calm activity that assists with emotional regulation, relaxation and focus as the sights and sounds of the rice calm the nervous system. Rice is super easy to colour! Using just a squirt of paint or a few drops of food colouring mixed with some hand sanitiser (or vinegar) and giving it all a shake in a ziplock bag before sitting it on some baking paper in the sun to dry for an hour or so. Alternatively, you can click here for access to my Etsy store where you will find a wide selection of pre-made coloured rice and coloured pasta sensory bases available for purchase.

Rock/shell decorating and hiding

Do you have a little rock and shell collector in your family too? All three of my kids seem to accumulate pockets full of rocks and shells during every day trip we take! Being in a caravan though, we don’t have the space (or weight capacity) to be able to keep every little rock or shell treasure.

To navigate this, we use our coloured markers to decorate our shells and rocks before hiding them around the caravan park or local playgrounds for other children to find. This not only saves us space and weight in the caravan, but it also allows the children to express their feelings and ideas through creative art, and utilise their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and sensory exploration through sight and touch.

We also discuss how and where we will hide the rocks and shells as we go, expanding on their vocabulary and use of prepositions, alongside of expanding on their social-emotional skills. My 12-year-old son loves to use his POSCA pens to create his rock artwork!

Magnetic tiles

How great are magnetic tiles? Honestly. They are a staple when packing toys for the van! The kids use their magnetic tiles to build crazy castles and towers, to colour match and create both 2D and 3D pictures and art forms, to measure area and length, to use as targets to roll balls at, and to build a range of stables, houses and spaces for their various toy animals, dolls and figurines.

A simple-set-up activity with magnet tiles is a magnet match game. Using a large piece of kraft paper, or smaller pieces of A4 paper, create 2D shapes using the magnet tiles before tracing around them. Place all the magnet tiles used to create the various shapes into a tub and place it on the other side of the annex, tent, or gazebo to the traced shapes.

Have the children move back and forth, picking up one magnet tile at a time and matching it to the traced images on the table. This activity allows the children to not only engage their gross motor skills and core strength, but it also allows them to expand on their problem solving and critical thinking skills, their memory building abilities and their fine motor skills, visual scanning, and hand eye coordination.

Bonus art activities

A roll of Kraft paper is a MUST in my caravan! Most mornings the camp table gets covered in kraft paper, a basket of washable markers is added, and the kids come and go to draw throughout the day as they please. A favourite brown paper craft set up of ours, is to draw a range of shapes each in a different colour across the page and leave some cut or torn up pieces of coloured paper and a few glue sticks for the kids to make a giant collage.

This activity not only allows them to work on their social, communication, and cooperation skills as they create their artwork as a team, but it also allows them to focus their attention on colour matching and recognition, and of course their fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and visual scanning. Plus, the element of pride once they have finished their masterpiece, is truly heartwarming!

Along with Kraft paper, clear contact is another MUST in our caravan! Clear contact is perfect for low-to-little mess art activities, collaging without glue and keeping little hands busy. A simple clear contact activity that we enjoy is clear contact butterflies: using Kraft paper or a piece of cardboard, draw and cutout a butterfly shape. Cover this with clear contact and watch as your children use craft supplies or natural resources to stick to the clear contact, decorating the butterfly wings.

Why stop at a butterfly? You could try different shapes and animals and let your children’s creative spirits soar! You will find that most of the activities above have some sort of emotional regulation component to them.

Holidays can be overwhelming

kids get so excited to explore and adventure, and sometimes their bodies need reminding that it is okay to slow down. Incorporating these calming activities into their day will supply them with the opportunity and tools to regulate, calm, and relax their minds and bodies, without even realising they are doing it!

Ready to get crafty?

Getting kids quietly crafty might not be what comes to mind on a camping holiday, but its such a good option for kids who get over stimulated and need a little quoiet time to reset. Thanks Little Bugs Sensory Play Bases!