Camping Printables for Kids We Love
The first time I took Margot tent camping she was five. I brought a soccer ball. One soccer ball. We lost it in the lake at Cedar Hollow within an hour and then I had absolutely nothing to do with a kid for an entire evening. Rookie.
So now the printables go first, before the cooler even. I run them off at the rec-center copier on the way out of town, usually the Wednesday before we leave, because our home printer chokes on anything heavier than plain copy paper and I gave up fighting it. Coloring pages. Word games. A maze or two she can do by headlamp. Whatever fills the cranky stretch at the picnic table while the fire finally catches.
Most of what I print is a cheap digital file off an indie design shop that I run myself at the copier. So yes, a few of the links down here are affiliate. You print it, I get a tiny cut, the kid stays off the boat ramp after dark. I can live with that math.
The Game Sheets I Hand Out the Second We Park
We rolled into Cedar Hollow late one Friday in July, no fire yet, kid already asking what we were going to DO. This is the set I reach for in exactly that moment. Mazes, a couple of spot-the-difference pages, simple word stuff. Enough that Margot does not finish the whole thing in ten minutes and then complain.
I printed a batch of six at the copier for about a dollar. Stuffed them in the side pocket of my camp chair. She did three at the table while I got the fire going, which is the only reason the fire got going at all.
One nitpick. A few of the pages skew young, so if your kid is past eight they will blow through those fast. Margot rolled her eyes at the connect-the-dots. Pair it with a harder set.
Thirty-One Pages for the Quiet Hour After Lunch
There is a dead hour after lunch where everybody is too full to hike and too awake to nap. This 31-page coloring set lives in that hour. I ran off maybe a dozen pages the night before our Tahquitz trip and tossed in a ziploc of broken crayons.
Margot colored a campfire orange and purple and was completely content for forty minutes on the camper steps. I drank a coffee that was actually still hot. Small miracles.
The quote pages read a little grown-up for a seven-year-old, honestly. She mostly ignored the words and colored the letters in. Fine. If your kid is younger, just know half the appeal is lost on them.
Not a Page, But the Kids Wore It to Camp Anyway
This one is a t-shirt graphic, so it broke my own coloring-page theme, but it earned its spot. My friend Dana used the weekend forecast design on iron-on transfer for her twins before their scout overnight in May. Two matching shirts. The boys felt like they had a uniform.
It pressed on with a regular iron off the kitchen counter, no heat press. She mirrored the image first, which you have to remember or the text comes out backwards. She forgot on a test scrap and we laughed about it for a week.
Heads up, it is a bold print, so it grabs lint on a dark shirt. Lint-roll before any photos or the pictures look fuzzy. Ask me how I know.
The Mixed Bundle for When Two Kids Need Different Things
When Dana’s twins camp with us, one wants to color and one wants puzzles, and they will not swap. This coloring games and activities file solves that fight because it has both in one download. Mazes, coloring scenes, a couple of dot-to-dots.
I printed eight pages before our August weekend at Cedar Hollow and split them between the three kids. Cost me maybe a dollar fifty at the copier. Worth it when three kids go quiet under the awning at the same time, which almost never happens otherwise.
The puzzle pages have no answer key, which bit me once. A maze stumped me with a five-year-old watching, and I had to fake it. Slightly humbling.
Clean Line Art the Little Ones Can Actually Color Inside
Some coloring files have lines so thin a four-year-old just scribbles over the whole thing. This summer camp line art is not that. The outlines are bold and simple, tents and canoes and little campers, the kind of shapes a small kid can keep their marker inside of.
I printed a stack for Dana’s youngest nephew, who is four and very proud of staying in the lines now. He did a canoe entirely in blue and announced it was the ocean. Did not correct him.
The simplicity cuts both ways. My seven-year-old found it too easy and wanted more detail. So this is a younger-kid file, full stop. Match it to the age or it falls flat.
Flyer Templates We Bent Into Camp Door Signs
These are summer camp flyer templates, meant for an actual camp program, but I hijacked them. We were doing a little backyard-into-the-woods camp week with the neighbor kids, and I printed a couple of flyers as door signs and a sign-up sheet for our pretend activities.
The text is editable, so I swapped in our fake camp name and the kids lost their minds seeing it printed official. Margot taped one to the camper door. It is still there, peeling at the corner, three weeks later.
One real catch, the editing happens in a design program and the learning curve is real if you have never used one. I fumbled the fonts for a while. Once it clicked it was quick, but budget an evening the first time.
The Poster That Became Our Tent’s Welcome Sign
This kids camp poster was an impulse grab and it turned into a trip tradition. I printed it big at a copy shop, not the home printer, and we zip-tied it to the canopy pole at our site. Instant kid headquarters. The neighbor kids knew exactly where to gather.
It held up fine for a weekend taped under the awning at Tahquitz. I rolled it back up and it survived the bin for the next trip too, which I did not expect from a paper print.
It is not weatherproof, obviously. A surprise drizzle warped the bottom corner and the colors ran a touch. If you want it to last, laminate it or print on something coated. Mine is gloriously imperfect now.
Seventy Pages for the Kid Who Colors Like It Is a Job
Margot colors fast and with intent. The 31-page set was gone over one long weekend. So I grabbed this 70-page version and now we have a stash that lasts the whole summer without me reprinting every trip.
I do not run all seventy at once, that is wild. I print fifteen or so before each weekend and rotate the rest. The file sits in a folder on my laptop called camp-prints that is, I admit, total chaos.
Same quote-heavy style as the smaller pack, just way more of it. A handful of pages repeat the same lantern and tent motifs. Not a dealbreaker for me, but if you hate repeats, this is not your file.
Clipart We Turned Into a Make-Your-Own Sticker Station
This kids and summer camp clipart became the best rainy-afternoon activity we did all year. I printed the art onto sticker paper at the copier, handed the kids scissors, and let them cut their own camp stickers for water bottles and journals.
Three kids, one sheet of stickers each, a solid hour of quiet at the camper table during a downpour at Cedar Hollow. They stuck campers and trees and little canoes all over everything, including the cooler lid, which I am still finding.
The sticker paper is not waterproof on its own, so the bottle stickers peeled after a few washes. A strip of clear packing tape over them fixed it. The kids did not care either way.
A Spinner the Kids Cut and Then Watched for an Hour
Not every kid printable is a flat page. This drive slow wind spinner is a cut file, and the activity was as much fun as the result. We made it a project during a slow afternoon and the kids were weirdly mesmerized by it spinning off the awning after.
I cut it on my little Cricut from weatherproof-backed stock at home. The drive slow message is genuinely handy at a campground crawling with kids on bikes. Took about forty minutes, most of it me untangling fishing line for the hang.
Real gripe, it tangles in strong wind. A cheap swivel clip from the hardware aisle mostly fixed mine. Buy the clip when you buy the file, you will want it.
Mug Art the Kids Made Into a Gift for Grandma
This is coffee mug clipart aimed at adults, but the kids commandeered it. Margot wanted to make her grandma something for her birthday, so we printed the art on sticker paper and pressed it onto a plain enamel mug from the camp store.
Done that way it is not dishwasher safe, full honesty. We told grandma to hand-wash. She does not, and it is peeling at one edge, and she uses it every single morning anyway. That was the whole point.
If you want it permanent, the art would sublimate clean onto a mug with the right gear. We did not have a press at a campsite in the woods. The kitchen-table sticker version held up a whole season, which is plenty.
The Flag Margot Decided Marked Her Tent
I bought this camping lady garden flag design for our home yard. Margot took one look and declared it was hers and now it gets staked outside her tent every trip. Seven-year-old logic, no appeals process.
I printed it onto printable fabric sheets and ironed the edges under so it would not fray. Bonus, it marks our site so the kids can find their way back from the bathhouse without a search party at dusk. Actually useful.
The fabric version fades after a few weekends in hard sun. For something that lasts you would want it printed on real outdoor flag material. Mine is on its third reprint and I have made peace with that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some camping activities?
The ones that actually hold up for us are dead simple. Coloring pages at the picnic table, a pinecone scavenger hunt, glow-stick tag once it is dark, and roasting marshmallows until someone drops one in the dirt and the night ends in tears.
The trip I overplanned with a whole schedule, Margot wanted to do none of it. So now I bring a printed stack, a deck of cards, and let the rest just happen. A creek to throw rocks in beats any agenda I write down.
Is camp considered child care?
Depends what you mean by it. In the US, day camp can count as child care for the dependent care tax credit, which Dana explained to me at a trailhead way better than I am explaining it now. Overnight camp usually does not qualify.
Family camping like ours, the kind in this post, is not child care at all. That is just me watching my kid while pretending to relax in a chair. Check your own tax situation, I print coloring pages, I am not an accountant.
Why is summer camp important to the life of a child?
I watched it land with Margot last summer. A week a little bored, a little muddy, mostly out of cell range, and she came home able to entertain herself for once instead of handing me a screen. That is worth a lot to me.
Kids get to fail small out there. She tipped a canoe, lost a flip-flop in the mud, figured out how to handle both without melting down. You cannot really teach that at the kitchen table on a Tuesday.
What are summer camp activities for kids?
At a real camp it is swimming, archery, crafts, a hike to a waterfall if you are lucky. At our scrappy backyard-and-tent version it is whatever I printed plus whatever the campsite hands us. Coloring pages, a sticker station, a flag the kid stakes out, a lot of rock collecting.
The printed stuff earns its keep in the dead hours, that gap between dinner and dark when everyone turns cranky. Fill that stretch and the evening goes smooth. Leave it empty and you get my soccer-ball trip, which I would rather not relive.
Before You Pack Up
None of this is fancy. I run a stack of pages at the rec-center copier the Wednesday before, cut a spinner on the kitchen floor, iron a flag, and drop it all in the camp bin right next to the marshmallows. Margot thinks I planned a whole program for her.
Start with one coloring set and one hands-on thing, see which one your kid actually grabs. Margot ignored half of what I bought and went feral for the sticker station. Next weekend is Cedar Hollow again, and she has already requested a second sheet of stickers and a maze that is, quote, harder this time.
More Camping Ideas We Love
Heads up: some links in this post are affiliate links. If you grab a file we love, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only feature designs we would happily pack on our own trip.
