I love camping. I love being outdoors. I love cooking and eating outside. I was a little worried that in this day of electronics, a camping trip would be boring. Especially to those pre-teens and teens that were going to be there. In planning a large family camp-out, involvement was critical. With 35 people, even large group activities become difficult to coordinate. I opted instead to focus on activities that all could participate in but on different levels and at different times.
I decided to pull together a scavenger hunt. A simple Google search will produce several decent examples. I decided to create a photo only scavenger hunt, trying to honor a leave only footprints, take only memories code. The only thing I asked participants to pick up was human trash, and I asked them to take a photo of them throwing the newly picked up human trash into a trash can.
The rest of the scavenger hunt was about doing things: making new friends, hanging from a tree limb, or skipping a rock. There was also a lot of interacting with nature: finding deer tracks, looking at leaves, finding a smooth rock, finding a spider web, or even better one with a spider in it!
Oh yeah, and you had to have the camping specific items: find an unopened bag of marshmallows or catch a fish.
I am not kidding when I tell you,everyone loved this activity. The little kids loved it. The pre-teens loved it. The adults loved it! This one activity brought so many memories to each of us!
I decided to pull together a scavenger hunt. A simple Google search will produce several decent examples. I decided to create a photo only scavenger hunt, trying to honor a leave only footprints, take only memories code. The only thing I asked participants to pick up was human trash, and I asked them to take a photo of them throwing the newly picked up human trash into a trash can.
Oh yeah, and you had to have the camping specific items: find an unopened bag of marshmallows or catch a fish.
I am not kidding when I tell you,everyone loved this activity. The little kids loved it. The pre-teens loved it. The adults loved it! This one activity brought so many memories to each of us!
- I thought it was funny that finding a locust shell was hard (they are a little out of season) so one group decided to substitute a crayfish shell.
- Or that one pre-teen could not find a caterpillar so he thought I would not notice he took a photo of a bushy weed instead.
- I busted up laughing when my cousin rolled an old tire into camp as his human trash!
- I loved watching all the kids hang from the low branch.
- Or how much fun we had skipping rocks.
- Or how my dearest friend just randomly broke into a game of Simon Says with all the little kids!
Making memories, one camping trip at a time!
you put this up too soon....I have great pictures of the scavenger hunt. especially one of you skipping a rock....shows a double skip. the best part of my photos are the pictures of all the extra things we saw which pretty proved we won the scavenger hunt activity...I will post them on facebook tonight so you can see!!!!
ReplyDeletemegs
PS- remembered to sign my name today:)
I am so looking forward to seeing your photos!
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