Children will love to camp outside in the backyard. A fun way to play and engage with the natural world, backyard camping can lead to all sorts of imaginative games.

What you need:

• Tent
• Sleeping bags
• Torches

Activity:

Set up your tent in the backyard and sleeping bags.

Once it gets dark, go on a hunt around the backyard with your torches seeing what you can find.

Collect bugs, leaves, flowers and branches and bring them back to your tent for observation.

Once your all in your sleeping bags, you can use the torches for shadow play against the tent walls.

Notes:

• Backyard camping gives you the best of both worlds – the great outdoors close to the convenience of an indoor bathroom and a well-stocked kitchen.
• You could try doing some camp food cooking by using a barbecue.
• One of the real joys of camping is the traditional storytelling. If you don’t want to light a bonfire in your backyard to tell stories around, wait until bedtime and then snuggle down and take turns making up stories.
• You can also have a make-shift camp fire by burning coals in a large ceramic planting pot, lined with layers of tin foil – the more layers the cooler the pot will stay!