Camping Pretend Play for Preschoolers

Do your kids like pretend play activities? if so, then they need to try this camping pretend play prompt! 

My kids love it when we turn areas of our playroom into fun dramatic play centers so they can play and explore.  With the summer weather in full swing, it’s the perfect time to take indoor play outside! I’m excited to partner with Horizon Organics to create this fun backyard camping pretend play activity for kids! Check out our free printables below too!

My daughter has been asking to go camping for weeks but we haven’t been able to get away to go camping, so this pretend play activity was perfect for her and her friends.

Camping Pretend Play for Preschoolers

Materials:

• Play Tent (or real!)
• Cooler
• Pretend campfire (see below)
• Printables (see below)
• Kid-sized chairs
• Yummy Snacks
• Binder clips or clothespins (to place printables around campsite)

The kids were so excited when we set up our play tent outside.  We added a campfire that we made from toilet paper rolls and tissue paper.  To make the campfire I simply glued the toilet rolls together with my glue gun and then glued the tissue paper to the top.

And of course no camp out is complete without a cooler full of some tasty snacks your kids will love!  We packed our cooler with yummy Horizon Organics snacks. The kids love the cheddar crackers! They’d eat the whole box if I let them.

My husband is a park ranger so my daughter wanted campground signs and tags like daddy has at work so I made up these simple camping themed printables.  The pack includes hiking & camping signs, scavenger hunt card, campsite tags, junior ranger card, & a fire danger sign.

I laminated all of our camping printables so that the kids could use them over and over.  The fire danger sign we laminated and then used a brass fastener to attach the arrow so that they could adjust the fire danger.  It was a great way to talk about fire safety when camping too.

We made the junior ranger cards into a game similar to the ones our state parks have. The kids had to do and check off everything on the card (scavenger hunt, snack, play in the tent, and explore the backyard on a “hike”) to complete the card and be a junior ranger!

This was one of our favorite pretend play activities!  It turned the backyard into a whole new world for the girls and made for an adventurous afternoon!  Watching the whole thing was just as fun for me.  It’s amazing to hear all the stories and scenarios these little minds can dream up.

What pretend play prompts are you doing?

Share your ideas with us in the comments! Or tell me what other camping printables you want to see included with these ones. 

Need more fun ideas to keep your kids busy and having fun? Click an image below: 

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