Who said you can’t bring all the fun indoors? If you think that doing outdoor activities aren’t enjoyable to do indoors, think again. With enough preparation and everyone’s participation, you can have as much fun in the same way (or even better) when you’re outside your home.
One of the many activity ideas you can do inside your humble abodes is indoor camping. Having a living room campout is great to prepare your kids for an actual outdoor family camping. Moreover, it’s better to first do a test run inside your house before camping outside to see the possible concerns or problems that may arise during the real camping adventure.
A living room campout is also perfect when the family can’t go out because of the weather or when one’s not ready yet to do some camping with nature. So, we present to you these ideas you can do in order to achieve a successful Camp Living Room.
Preparing a Living Room Campout
Before putting your indoor camping ideas into action, here are some tips on how to prepare for your living room campout:
Create a Camping Ambiance
Set out sleeping bags, blankets, and pitch a tent if possible. Put on your creative hat, and transform your living room into an indoor camping site!
You can add the camping feels by turning off or dimming the lights, with only yellowish to orange lamp lights illuminating Camp Living Room. You can also prepare a playlist or nature sounds to serve as background noise to fully immerse the family into the camping experience.
Prepare Camp Snacks & Drinks
The camping experience wouldn’t be complete without some delightful snacks and drinks! You may bake some homemade s’mores, cupcakes, and popcorn, and prepare hot cocoa before you bid good night.
Organize Games for your Family to Enjoy
Have a quality bonding time with your family while having your indoor campout by playing some games all night. This may be board games, such as chess, scrabble, card games like UNO, or charades—it all depends on your family’s interests and preference. What’s important is that you all enjoy and have fun.
Camp Rules
Also, don’t forget to set the camp rules during your Camp Living Room experience. This may include unplugging yourselves from your digital world by minimizing the use or turning off your WiFi during the camp to make way for some quality bonding time. And most importantly, don’t forget to smile and have fun all throughout the camp.
Indoor Camping Ideas
Now that you have figured out how your campout is gonna go, and prepared the essentials and schedule, it’s time to start making your indoor camping ideas into reality.
Put Up an Indoor Fort or Tent
Your living room campout experience won’t be complete without a tent or an indoor fort! It will be your makeshift bedroom for camping. Set the Camp Living Room vibe by setting up either a fort or a tent.
If you have a tent, may it be a pop-up or a typical weekend-style, you can definitely pitch it indoors. You may also use your available resources to make your own tents or forts. For example, grab your dining room chairs and put a large duvet or comforters over them. Voila! You now have a DIY fort that you and your kids can play house with!
Grab your blankets, extra duvets, sleeping bags, and quilts, and set it up inside. For a more immersive experience, it’s better if you sleep in your fort to actually see firsthand what concerns may arise when you take the adventure outdoors, like preparing more blankets to make the kids comfier, your kids’ favorite toy to give them a good night’s sleep, and the likes.
Make an Indoor Campfire
You can also bring the campfire sessions indoors! Even though you’re camping indoors, you can still prepare a makeshift campfire made of tissue paper.
All you need are some brown construction papers for the logs, orange, red, and yellow tissue paper sheets for the flames, a tea light, and a cup.
For the in-depth step by step guide of this DIY campfire, you may check this article.
Make S’mores
Camping snacks, such as s’mores, should not be missed in your indoor camping experience. You may opt between two options—paper s’mores or edible s’mores!
To make paper s’mores your kids can play with, you need to prepare some artsy graham crackers, marshmallows, and an indoor campfire. You may cut out some brown cardboard or construction paper to make some crackers and chocolates, a toilet paper roll as the marshmallow, and the abovementioned campfire. You may check this link for a tutorial on how you can make paper s’mores.
On the other hand, you can bake your all-time favorite s’mores, too! Just toast the marshmallows over the stove, put a graham cracker on one side, and heat it in the microwave for 15 seconds. After which, place another graham cracker on the other side. It’s best served with other camping snacks, such as popcorn and mixed nuts.
Watch Family Movies About Camping
Another one of the great ideas to make your indoor camping more fun and enjoyable is to have a movie marathon with the kids. Why not play a movie that has a camping theme, too? Don’t forget to grab some popcorn to munch while watching these movies!
- Swiss Family Robinson
- Great Outdoors
- The Parent Trap
- RV
Set Up a Starry Night
One activity you usually do during your outdoor adventure is stargazing. Likewise, you can adopt the starry, starry night vibes indoors. This can be done by putting up twinkly lights on the ceiling or all over the room. It would be better if there are glow in the dark star stickers on your ceiling that may serve as your night lights while you guys are sleeping.
Alternatively, if you have an old flashlight, a non-permanent craft vinyl or contact paper, and a star-shaped hole puncher, you can do your own star beaming flashlight. For sure, your kids will be amazed to see stars everywhere indoors.
Prepare a Kids’ Camping Kit
Let the kiddos feel like they are actual campers by giving them their own camping kit. A simple camping kit comes with a lantern or flashlight, water bottle, compass, and other essentials. It’s like their survival kit for the whole duration of the camp.
In case you want your kids to have a pretend camping kit for a more imaginative and immersive experience, there are a lot of available kits online.
Check the Pretend & Play Camp Set for Kids on Amazon.Grill Your Own Dinner
Imagine you’re having your dinner under the stars with a cold night breeze. Might as well incorporate your camp dinner to your living room campout! Let your kids help you grill some hotdogs, pork skewers, and the likes—just like how your typical camping dinner would be. After which, have a picnic dinner over some meaningful stories and conversations.
Create Your DIY Tinker Kit
This activity is perfect for those curious, creative, and imaginative kids that will test their skills on their greatest invention to date. It will keep the kids be more attentive and engaged as to how they’re going to make their own tinker kits.
The tinker kit includes scrap toys, tin cans, toilet paper, toilet paper tubes, rubber bands, and so much more—it’s up to your imagination. Who knows, this activity might ignite their fire to become an engineer or an inventor someday.
Play Camping Games
Keep the kiddos energized, and spend the night bonding with them through camping games. If there’s enough space for you guys to move around, you may organize a flashlight scavenger hunt, flashlight tag, nature bingo, or glow in the dark toss using glow in the dark sticks, which may also be used as bracelets and accessories.
Give them Camping Journals
You may prepare a notebook filled with camping activities, coloring activities, and pages to write on. This can also serve as their diary or journal all throughout the campout. It’s a good way for your kids to jot down what they feel during their camping experience, as well as have a memento they can look back into when they grow a little bigger.
Here are some ideas on what you can include in their camping journals (you may customize it or have it printed):
- Write your own campfire story
- Camping Pack Checklist
- Camping Bingo
- Camp Art Coloring Sheets
Sing Along to Campfire Songs
Try to do a sing-along or karaoke to campfire songs before you go to sleep. It’s a perfect way to boost everyone’s spirit, camaraderie, and enjoy the night as you create wonderful memories from your indoor camping adventure.
Do Nature-Related Arts & Crafts
If your kids are into arts and crafts, this activity might be part of your list. You may do some process arts using lees and paints, nature weaving crafts, string art ornaments using twigs, and the likes.
Read Camping Stories
Read camping stories, over a hot cocoa or tea, before going to sleep. You may read it aloud as a bedtime story or, to add some fun and excitement, dim the lights and let your kids turn on their flashlights from their camping kit, and use them as their source of light while reading.
Sleep under the stars
Complete your indoor camping experience by sleeping in your pitched tents and makeshift forts under the shiny, shimmering stars. Dim the lights, allowing the DIY starry, starry night to shine through.
Alternatively, you can use some tea lights or battery-powered candles inside a glass, and scatter it in the living room.
Tinfoil Breakfast & Hot Drinks
Let everyone prepare their breakfast in tinfoil. You may stuff in some meat, potatoes, vegetables, season it depending on your preference, and wrap it tightly. Place them in the oven, and bake it for an hour.
This is best served with a cup of hot cocoa or coffee. Bon Appetit!
Conclusion
When you’re stuck inside your home, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun. There a lot of activity ideas you could do, and the kids would definitely love some spice and adventure, like having an indoor camping experience. It’s a perfect activity to bond as a family while creating wonderful memories in the comfort of your own homes. Plus, doing so would equip and prepare you when taking the adventure outdoors!
