1. Choose your location based on your family’s interests.

Home away from home at Jackson Wellsprings

For our family, we love returning to Jackson Wellsprings in Ashland, Oregon. It’s a place that has reasonable camping, electricity if you need it, WiFi, and a wonderful pool fed by a hot spring. We first found the spot twenty-five years ago in August wen my husband and I were on our honeymoon. Being young college students, we didn’t have a ton of money to spend so the hot spring was the perfect location for one of our stops on our way back to school. Since then, we’ve camped there on numerous times with the kids when we’ve gone to see the Shakespearean Festival. Several years ago as I finished up my master’s program, I had classes in Ashland for five weeks. Jackson Wellspring became my home away from home from Monday through Thursday. I took the kids, and we enjoyed the pool, WiFi (to keep in contact with home), and Ashland together.

So, whether your family likes swimming, hiking, kayaking, woods, rivers, or cabins, look for a place that has something everyone will enjoy. That way, you won’t be hearing, “Mom, I’m bored!”

2. Do research before staying.

Last summer, my nineteen-year-old and I traveled back to the Mid-west to see my family. We camped along the way; so I researched the first two spots on our journey. Those few minutes on the internet saved us time and gave us a pleasant experience–nice grass, inexpensive places to stay, and hot showers. However, if I would have researched the return trip, it would have been better. Our night’s stay in Grand Teton’s could have been less stressful, instead of not knowing if we were going to have to sleep in our car! (You can read about it in my blog post.)

Years ago, my husband and I made that same trip and camped along the way. Some research would have saved us on two different occasions. The first our campground really was an RV campground with no tenting spots, and we ended up sleeping on rocks. Another spot had a great location, but we didn’t check the weather out. Our poor little six-month-old who never could keep blankets over him when he slept, stayed under the sleeping bag and woke up with blue lips!

3. Plan your menu accordingly.

When camping, you not only have to pack your sleeping gear, but your food and food equipment. Make sure you plan so you can enjoy your time as well. We’ve had several camping events that I forgot to pack food that was easy to snack on or that would help me deal with heat. I remember one memorable event where I ended up in a friend’s tent laying down eating cheese and crackers and drinking water because I had overheated and ended up with a hypoglycemic crash.

Camping can be fun, but if you’re left washing up dishes or with dried on food when you return, it can ruin the fun. Some simple planning can help. Choose foods that are easy to clean up and disposable. Our go to for camping events are cup of noodles, instant oatmeal, and sandwiches with chips. However, if you have the whole portable kitchen, there’s nothing better than the smell of eggs and bacon mixed with the scent of the great outdoors.

Take into consideration your activities you’ll be doing. The one year, my teenagers went on a hiking camping trip up the Rogue River. I packed lightweight food for them like we would take to our medieval events. What I didn’t plan for was their activities. The cup of noodles and instant oatmeal didn’t fuel their bodies enough.

4. Pack according to your family needs.

Yep, having a checklist of what all you need is very helpful. I’ve found I usually divide my list into kitchen, food, clothes, and bedding. It’s no fun to show up at a campsite and not have a pillow or enough blankets to stay warm. Don’t believe me? Just ask my fifteen-year-old. Be specific with your checklist and take into account the type of campsite you’ll have. One time, I packed everything for pancakes the next morning, including the electric skillet. However, when we arrived at our site, there was no electricity to be had. Thankfully, I have a MacGyver for a husband. He rigged two pop cans into a skillet over a fire. Download a printable camping checklist and one to hand to your child for packing.

5. Remember the point of camping.

Whether you’re camping in a cabin by the lake, in a yurt on the ocean, or under the stars in your own backyard, the reason we camp is to spend time with family. Make sure to put the electronic devices away and enjoy the great outdoors. I know I touted Jackson Wellsprings for their WiFi, but the point of that was for certain hours a day, I could work on my homework, and we could Skype home instead of paying for a phone call. If everyone’s engrossed in their own devices, then we’re not building memories together nor are we doing anything differently than what we could do at home. We might as well be in the house instead of camping.

Did I leave any special tips out? Let me know in the comments. You can download a printable checklist for your next camping trip as well as a kid friendly packing list, and you can save this “Don’t Leave Home Without” list.

Choose a Book with Appeal

When choosing a book, consider the age of the child and the attention span. I’ve read to two-year-olds. However, I chose a book that had lots of pictures and things the child could look at. When reading to my own kids, I picked out books they either recommended to me or gave them an option of several interesting ones and then let them decide.

What will appeal? Good question. For younger children, I’d suggest picture books with vibrant colors. For very young ones, the Dr. Seuss books are great for that. Another good author is Jan Brett. Her books combine great story-lines with amazing drawings. Unique books also are good. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat is one such book. It has cut outs to create the drawings. For older kids, you’ll want good stories. Think of the ones that you enjoyed growing up. Blend some of the classics with some modern day stories. A good resource for a list of books to read at different ages is Honey for a Child’s Soul.

Stretch Your Child

A pet peeve of mine is when people talk down to kids. When they do this, it’s as if they’re saying the child is not of importance. I say, believe in your child. Stretch your child’s imagination, vocabulary, and attention span. Test different styles of books to read to your child. Just because it’s not in his or her age range, may not mean it isn’t perfect for the two of you to sit down and read. Often people think that children can’t understand large vocabulary. I disagree. Lemony Snicket used big words in his A Series of Unfortunate Events. Each book centered around one word that sometimes I didn’t even know what it meant. He would explain it at the beginning and then move on and continue to use it throughout the book. When I wrote the Dragon Courage series, I read it to my children who were eight, eleven and twelve at the time. The nine-year-old sat through all of them eating them up and asking for more. The other two came and went, but still have favorite characters from the stories. The series is rated at middle grade, but I didn’t talk down to them. Even when my editor pointed out words, I thought through them and often decided to keep them and let kids look them up or ask an adult what it means.

Be Active

One of my now twenty-two=year-old’s favorite bed-time stories when he was about two was the Berenstein Bears In the Dark. It wasn’t because of the story itself but because how we read it to him. We moved him around with the bears, and at the end when sister bear bends over the edge of the bunk bed and yells “boo” to brother bear, we’d reenact it every time.

With little ones, I’ve watched my mom point out the items in the pictures. She’ll ask, “Where’s the bird? Do you see the bird?” then wait until the child points with her. I’ve also used my finger to point to the words. Soon, the little ones are using their finger to follow along as well. This is not only keeping them involved, but it helps them with reading readiness which their kindergarten teacher will thank you for.

Be Creative

Change your voice around as you read. Be the different characters. Have fun with it. Kids love it when you have fun with them.

Audio books can be great at this. If you sit down and listen to an audio book with your child, you can have memories of a book read aloud that you both experienced together as hearers. From 2012-14, I had a fifty minute commute to work. I took my middle son along as he attended school where I taught. We’d use that fifty minutes one way to listen to audio books. We traveled through the worlds of Peter Pan and the Starcatchers, The Beyonders, and many more. We participated together in the unwinding of the plot and character development. We’d discuss what we thought would happen, how we’d have written it if we were the authors, and sometimes even real life values based on what we were hearing.

An alternative to a professional audio book is a self-made one. When my family moved to Ecuador for eleven months, we took the three-month-old granddaughter, and two-and-a-half-year-old grandson from my parents. They made the best of it by recording tapes of grandma reading to the grandkids. Later, when we returned, a friend we met in Ecuador sent a tape to our son of her reading his favorite books. She added a fun twist. She got books she knew he had and could follow along with. So, as she read and would get to the bottom of the page, she’d say “ding, ding, turn the page”. After that, no matter who read to him, we had to use, “ding, ding, turn the page”.  In today’s technology of recorders, it would be even easier to do this.

This all sounds nice and easy. It is. The hardest part is getting up and going to your local library and picking out a book. You can do it. Maybe try one of these already mentioned, or pick up one of your favorites from growing up. Here’s a list of my favorite books you can choose from. So, go out there and start reading to your child.