Indoor camp outs are fun when the weather outside is nasty. You can do this as a family or invite friends over to join in the fun.SNACK: Bag-o-Smores! My three year old helped with this - it would even be a good idea to let each child make his/her own bag of smores by giving them each a bag and a spoon to fill their bags. Each bag has mini marshmallows, chocolate cocoa puff, and teddy grahams. WE tied the bags with hemp twine.
SET UP A TENT! We have a 10 man tent that we set up in our family room after moving the couches out of the way. You could also use your garage. I throw a bunch of blanket and pillows in there and the kids can enjoy quite of free play. We usually have friends go home around 8:00 p.m. and our kids pull out their sleeping bags and sleep in the tent.
SPOOKY STORY: What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss is the BEST! The newest edition even features the 'pale green pants with nobody inside them' with glow in the dark effects! This book is fun because your three year old and your ten year old will sit through it and be engaged.
GAMES:
1-Flashlight Face: sit in a circle (we sat in the tent) and turn off the lights. Holding a flashlight under your chin say an emotion that the kids can make with their faces (mad, scared, dead, happy, crazy, etc.) Demonstrate then pass the flashlight around the circle. Each kid takes a turn putting the flashlight under his/her chin and making a face reflecting the emotion first mentioned.
2-Going on a Tiger/Bear Hunt: This one is especially appropriate for younger children. Everyone starts out sitting and you announce everyone will be going on a tiger hunt together. The is done entirely in pantomime and can be as detailed or as simple as you want. You and the kids can go over/under fences, swim a river, squish through mud, etc. Here is a link to the tiger hunt story I grew up with featuring Sesame Street's Ernie http://www.metrolyrics.com/tiger-hunt-lyrics-sesame-street.html. A bear hunt story I like and super easy to imitate is in a book called Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.
3-Spoons: Especially appropriate for older kids this one gets crazy and fun. You just need a deck of cards (we use UNO cards) and a spoon for each player. Here's a link to the rules: http://boardgames.about.com/od/cardgames/a/spoons.htm
CRAFTS: There are truckload of fun camp crafts. When thinking indoor camp out you want to keep the mess factor at a minimum. One of my favorites was providing colored paper, yarn, and scissors to the kids and letting them cut the paper and yarn into long strips. They then crammed these strips into a small empty clementine bag (plastic netted bag - onions and potatoes come in them too sometimes). We hung the stuffed bag from a tree. The strips of yarn and paper peek out of the netting allowing the birds to grab what they want for nest making.
