Summer Camp Packing List for Kids: Our Favorite Picks
Theo went to his first real camp last June. Five nights at Spruce Hollow, age seven, and I packed like it was a weekend at grandma’s. It was not.
Here is what nobody warns you about little kids and camp. They cannot find their own stuff. A six-year-old will look right at his own green water bottle in a bin of nine green water bottles and swear he does not own one. So you label. Everything. The toothbrush, the flashlight, both shoes, the inside of the hat. I missed the underwear the first year and they came home in a communal lost-and-found bag that smelled like a pond. Then there is the homesick part, which hit Theo on night two at 8pm sharp, and I was not ready for that either.
So I rebuilt the whole thing around a printed list, a stack of name labels, and a few camp-themed files I actually ran through the rec center copier on cardstock. A couple are affiliate links, so if you grab one it tosses me a few cents.
The Simple Line Art I Colored In For Bin Labels
Little kids respond to pictures, not words they cannot read yet. So I printed this line art big, one tent per page, let Theo color them himself with the markers from the kitchen drawer, and we taped one to each packing bin. Tent bin. Bathroom bin. Clothes bin.
He knew which was which before he could spell any of them. That was the whole point.
One nitpick. The lines are thin, so on a low-ink printer a couple came out faint and a six-year-old colors right over a faint line anyway. Print a test page dark first. After that they held up taped inside the borrowed minivan all the way to Bishop.
Flyer Templates I Hijacked For A Day-Camp Sign-Up
Our neighbor runs a little rec-center day camp and was making flyers in a panic the week before, so I sent her this set. Ten kids camp flyer layouts, and the ninety-off price meant she did not feel bad using one for a free community thing.
She swapped the text, dropped in the dates and the church-lot meeting spot, printed forty at the office store. Done in an afternoon instead of fighting with a blank page.
The catch. They are templates, so you need something that opens and edits them, and she does not own design software. We used a free online editor and it was fine after a confused ten minutes. The art skews young and bright, which for a kids camp is exactly right.
Clipart For The Countdown Calendar On The Fridge
Homesickness starts before drop-off, so we made a paper countdown the week before. I printed these little camp graphics, one per day, and Theo crossed off a canoe or a campfire each morning before breakfast. Gave the nerves somewhere to go.
Kid-friendly art, lots of small pieces, easy for little hands to recognize.
The pieces import at different sizes, which threw off my grid until I dropped them all on one page and eyeballed it. Took a minute. The leftover graphics went straight onto his cubby tag, so nothing wasted. He kept the calendar. It is still on the fridge, all crossed off, in July.
A Journal A Seven-Year-Old Could Actually Use
I doubted a journal for a kid who prints his letters backwards half the time. But I printed this one anyway, two-sided on the rec center copier, punched three holes, stuck it in a slim binder so it would not curl in a damp cubby.
He drew more than he wrote. A counselor told me he filled two pages with the canoe that tipped. I would never have heard about it otherwise.
What I would change. The lines run tight for big wobbly first-grader handwriting, so I bumped the print to about 110 percent and it gave him room. The cover prints a touch dark on a tired cartridge, so test one sheet before you run the batch.
Loud Colors So He Could Spot His Own Bag
Nine identical backpacks on a hook rail, all navy, all from the same store sale. The bright colors here are why Theo found his without crying at pickup. I sized the PNG down to about two inches, printed it on sticker paper, slapped it on the bag and the lunch box.
The colors stayed bright even after a week of being dragged through dirt.
Downside, the file is big and high-res, so it made my cheap home printer think for a second before it spat the sheet out. Give it a beat. And one sticker peeled at the corner by day three, so I added a strip of clear tape over the top of the rest. Stayed put.
A Plain Camp Graphic For The Cubby Name Cards
Simple wins with little ones. I used this on the name cards we taped to the cubbies so a seven-year-old could find his bunk on a dark night-one without a meltdown. Printed four to a page to save paper.
Clean art, reads fine even small.
My one gripe, there is a lot of white space around the graphic, so I cropped it in before printing or the name floated weirdly at the bottom of the card. After that it laminated clean with the cheap pouches from the office store, though I bubbled my first one rushing it. Slow the laminator down. The redo held up taped to plywood all week.
The Sticker Set For Labeling Every Last Sock
Camp eats small kids’ belongings whole. Socks, the one good flashlight, the stuffed dog he could not sleep without. I ran this through the copier on full-sheet label paper, cut it into little squares, wrote Theo’s name on each in Sharpie, and stuck them on the inside of everything.
The art is cute enough that he wanted them on his stuff, which with a seven-year-old is half the fight won.
The snag, on the slick plastic flashlight the backing did not grab well, so I taped over it. On fabric and the toothbrush case it stuck fine. The stuffed dog came home. The flashlight did not, but it was labeled, so that is somebody else’s problem now.
A Sunny Print For The Care-Package Note
Spruce Hollow lets parents mail one package mid-week, and for a homesick first-timer that envelope is everything. I printed this PNG at the top of a half-sheet, wrote a goofy note under it about the dog missing him, tucked in gum and bug-bite cream. Mailed it the Sunday before so it landed by Wednesday.
It prints warm and bright on plain copy paper, no fancy stock.
The one thing, the file came in big, so I scaled it down or the header alone would have eaten the whole sheet. A counselor said he carried the note around in his pocket the last two days. Cheesy. It worked on the homesickness, which was the only metric I cared about.
The Retro Cut File For His Going-To-Camp Shirt
We made one special shirt for drop-off morning. I pulled this SVG into my little cutting machine the night before, weeded it at the counter while my coffee went cold, pressed it onto a plain yellow tee with the iron-on we already had.
The retro look is the appeal, very summer-of-something. Theo felt like a big kid in it, which mattered more than I expected for the nerves.
The weeding got fiddly, the script has thin little connectors, so go slow with the hook tool or you lift a letter you wanted. I lost a dot off an i. Drew it back with a fabric marker, nobody noticed. He wore it for the first-day photo and refused to change for two days after.
One Whole Set So I Stopped Buying Singles
After three separate little downloads I wised up and grabbed this collection, a bundle of tents and canoes and campfire bits in one go. Way less hunting at midnight for one matching graphic.
I used these to make a full set of matching gear labels, a canoe for the swim bag, a tent for the sleep bag, a campfire for the snack pouch. A seven-year-old finds things faster when the pictures match the category.
A few pieces repeat with tiny changes, so the count is a little generous. Still, I pulled six solid graphics for less than a coffee. My friend Dana borrowed my folder for her kid’s bag and the matching set made her whole afternoon, her words.
The Little Icon I Stuck On The Packing List Itself
Every kids list needs a picture at the top or they ignore the whole page. I dropped this graphic on the header of our actual packing list, printed it, taped it inside the minivan lid where Theo could see it while we loaded.
Clean, reads fine even shrunk small.
My note, the colors are punchy, so on a gasping cartridge the darker bits muddy together. Swap the ink if yours is low. Otherwise it did its one job, made a boring list look like camp so a seven-year-old would actually point at the next thing to pack. He pointed at marshmallows first. Of course he did.
A Backup Graphic For The Bunkmate Gift Tags
Theo wanted to bring something small for the four boys in his cabin, kids he had never met. So we printed this on cardstock, cut tags, punched holes, and tied them to the little carabiner flashlights he picked at the dollar store, his idea for the homesick first night.
The art is small and friendly, good tag size, no fussing.
The only catch, the PNG had a faint background tint that showed on white cardstock, so I bumped the contrast before printing to clean it up. After that the tags looked store-bought. He gave them out night one and texted me through a counselor that the boys liked them. Four new friends before the homesickness even had a chance to land.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to pack for summer camp?
With a little kid, pack with them, not for them, and label every single thing before it goes in the bag. I learned that after Theo’s underwear came home in a communal lost-and-found that smelled like pond water. Now we lay it all out on the floor a few days early and they help cross it off a printed list.
Roll the clothes instead of folding so a seven-year-old can find a shirt without dumping the whole bag on the cabin floor. Put each day’s outfit in its own gallon zip bag if your kid is the type to wear day one’s shirt all week. Mine is, proudly.
How to organize a summer camp?
I have only run the sending-off side, but my neighbor runs a rec-center day camp and the thing that saved her was labeling and color-coding everything before kids ever showed up. Cubby tags, group colors so the little ones know where to line up, name cards on every bin. Print it all in one batch so it matches.
She also keeps a master checklist taped to the supply-closet door and crosses gear off as it goes out and comes back. The one summer she skipped it, a cooler and the first-aid kit walked off and nobody could say when. Sounds obvious until it is your missing cooler.
What to pack for summer camp?
For a young kid, the stuff people forget is the boring stuff and the comfort stuff. Shower shoes for the gross camp bathrooms, a labeled refillable water bottle, a flashlight plus a spare since one always dies, sunscreen, bug spray, a hat with the name written inside the brim. I forgot to label the shoes year one and we never saw the left one again.
Then the comfort layer, which matters way more at six or seven. The one stuffed animal they cannot sleep without, a couple of self-addressed envelopes, and a little note tucked in the bag for the homesick night. Theo found his on night two, right on schedule.
Can I print these at home?
Yep. I print most of mine at home on a basic inkjet, and the ones that need to survive a damp cubby I take to the rec center copier for the heavier cardstock. Plain copy paper is fine for the countdown calendar and notes, sticker paper for the labels, cardstock for tags and the journal cover.
The one catch, a couple of these files come in big and high-res, so scale them to your page before you hit print or you waste a sheet on one floating graphic. And the SVG needs a cutting machine or software that opens it. Ask me how I know. I test one page first now, every single time.
Before You Pack Up
Theo came home from Spruce Hollow sunburned, down one flashlight, dragging a journal full of canoe drawings and a story about a frog in the bathhouse. The homesick night two passed in about ten minutes once a counselor pulled out the note from the care package. The labeled stuffed dog made it back. Most of the socks did not.
If your kid is little and this is the first one, start with the labels and a countdown they can color themselves. Pick a couple of these files, run them through whatever printer you have, and let them help. Theo already wants Spruce Hollow again next June, and this time the bins are getting labeled before we even pack.
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.
