Camping Party Ideas for Kids
My nephew turned five in May and wanted a camping party. He is five. He cannot actually camp. So we faked it in my sister’s backyard with a borrowed two-room tent, a fire pit nobody was allowed near, and string lights I clipped to the fence at the last second.
Four kids that age means short attention, sticky hands, and one who will cry about marshmallows. I learned fast that the trick is having little stations ready before anyone shows up. Signs. Name tags. A game printed out so I am not inventing rules on the spot while a four-year-old tugs my sleeve.
Most of what made it look pulled-together came from cheap printable files I grabbed online for a couple bucks each and ran through the library copier. Below are the ones I actually used, plus a couple I bought for the next one. If you click through and buy, it helps keep this blog going, no extra cost to you.
The pack that saved me from inventing rules on the spot
This was the first thing I printed and honestly it carried the whole afternoon. A bundle of little camp games and activities sized for small kids, the kind you can hand to a tired parent and say go. I did a scavenger hunt off one page (find a pinecone, find something orange) and the kids were gone for fifteen blessed minutes.
I ran it on plain copy paper because five-year-olds destroy everything anyway. Printed two sets so two could play at once. No fighting. Mostly.
One nitpick. A few of the activity pages assume you have crayons on hand, which I did not, so I had a brief panic and raided my sister’s junk drawer. Print the supply page first so you know what you actually need before the party starts.
The little flame I stuck on absolutely everything
A simple campfire cut file. Logs, flames, clean shape. I am not a Cricut wizard but I managed to cut a dozen of these in orange and red vinyl one evening while half-watching a show.
I put them on the favor bags. On the welcome sign. On a kid’s water bottle because she asked. It is one of those shapes that just reads camping instantly, even to a four-year-old who cannot read yet.
The nitpick. The flame has thin little points, so if you are weeding vinyl by hand they want to lift. Go slow on those tips or you lose a flame and have to recut. Ask me how I know.
My backdrop fix when the backyard looked like a backyard
A mountain-and-campfire scene I blew up big and taped behind the snack table. Suddenly the fence disappeared and we had a fake mountain view. The parents took photos in front of it, which I did not expect.
It is a PNG with a real outdoorsy feel, mountains, a little fire, trees. I printed it as four tiled pages and lined them up with painter’s tape. Took me twenty minutes and one swear word when the third page came out crooked.
Nitpick, it is a fairly detailed image, so a cheap printer eats ink on it. I did mine at the library where color is ten cents a page instead of murdering my home cartridge.
S’more pun art for the dessert corner
The party had a tiny s’mores bar (more on that below) and this little smore fun graphic was the sign over it. Cute marshmallow character, friendly font, exactly the goofy energy a five-year-old crowd wants.
I printed it on cardstock, slid it in a dollar-store frame, propped it against the graham cracker box. Done. The kids could not read it but the moms thought it was funny, which counts.
One thing. The file is a PNG on a transparent background, so if you drop it into a doc the white parts can vanish on a colored page. I just kept the background white and it was fine.
The grab-bag of camp shapes I mixed and matched
This vector set is the one I keep coming back to. Tents, fire, trees, little camp odds and ends, all in a matching style. When you need to make six different signs that still look like they belong together, a matched set does that for you.
I used pieces of it on the name tags, the food labels, and a banner I taped over the tent door. Same look across all of them with zero design skill required on my end.
Nitpick. It is a vector set, so to really use the separate pieces you want software that opens them properly. I opened it in a free editor and it was a little clunky, but the included flat images saved me when I got impatient.
Matching crew art for the goodie bags
Smore crew. The phrase made me laugh so I put it on the favor bags and on a couple of cheap white tees for the birthday kid and his cousin. Marshmallow buddies around a fire, very little-kid friendly.
I did the bags with an iron-on transfer sheet and the tees the same way. Took an evening. The birthday boy wore his shirt for three days straight and refused the wash.
The nitpick is on me, not the file. I ironed the first transfer backwards and the text came out mirrored. Read the transfer-paper directions. The art itself prints clean and bright.
The soft pink camp set for my niece’s half of the party
My niece is three and wanted everything pink, so this girly campfire art was her corner. Bows, soft colors, little camp scene. It kept the peace between a fire-truck-red theme and a kid who wanted pink, which at that age is a real diplomatic win.
I printed it for her own little name tag and a sign on her chair. She carried the sign around for the rest of the day.
Nitpick, the pastel tones come out washed if your printer runs light. I bumped the color a notch in the print settings and it looked much closer to the preview.
Night-sky art for when the sun finally dropped
We started the party at four so by the end the light was going, and this stars-and-smores design felt right for that golden-into-dusk window. Stars, a fire, marshmallows on sticks. Warmer and a little dreamier than the daytime stuff.
I used it on the thank-you cards I sent home with each kid. Printed four to a page, cut them down, scribbled a note on the back.
One nitpick. The dark background uses a lot of ink if you print it full size, so for the small cards it was cheap, but I would not blow this one up poster-sized unless you love refilling cartridges.
The happy-camper print on the welcome sign
First thing the kids saw at the gate. A happy camper scene with a fire and trees, bright and busy in a good way. I wrote welcome to camp Theo across the top in marker and leaned it on a chair by the entrance.
It sets the tone before anyone is even inside. Three of the kids pointed at the little camper and announced that is me, which, sure, go off.
Nitpick. It is a detailed forest scene, so small text you add on top can get lost against it. Leave a clear-ish band for your own writing or it disappears into the trees.
The grown-up corner I made for the parents
Four little kids means four sets of parents standing around, so I made one quieter vintage lake-and-campfire print for the drinks table where the adults gathered. Muted colors, retro feel, a calm lake at night. It looked like a real camp poster.
I framed it in a thrift-store frame I already had and it honestly looked like decor I would keep up year-round. Might actually hang it in the camper.
Nitpick, the vintage palette is intentionally muted, so if you were hoping for loud and bright this is not that. For a kid station I would pick something punchier, but for the adult corner it was just right.
Bonfire-and-moon art for the photo spot
A forest at night with a moon and a bonfire. Moodier than the rest. I taped it next to the mountain backdrop so there was a daytime side and a nighttime side, and the older cousins (seven and eight) gravitated to the dark one for pictures.
It reads as bonfire instantly, which is the word the kids kept using. Bonfire, not campfire, very important distinction apparently.
Nitpick. Same ink warning as the other dark designs. Lots of black and deep blue. I printed it once big and that was plenty, no second copies.
The goofy marshmallow friends that closed the bags
Last buy, and the kids’ favorite. Funny little marshmallow friends, cartoonish and silly, exactly the humor a five-year-old finds hilarious. I stuck these on the very front of each favor bag as the final touch.
Printed them on full-sheet sticker paper, cut them out, slapped one on every bag and a couple extras on the cooler. Kids peeled the leftover ones onto their own arms.
Nitpick, on sticker paper the cut lines around the marshmallows are fiddly because the shapes are rounded and small. I gave up on precision and cut loose squares around each one. Nobody five years old has ever cared about a sticker border.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to bring to a campfire party?
For a little-kid version, way less fire than you think and way more snacks. We had the s’mores stuff, juice boxes, baby wipes by the gallon, and the games printed out. Blankets to sit on. A first-aid kit I never opened but was glad to have.
The real answer I learned at Theo’s party, bring backups. Backup marshmallows, backup batteries for the string lights, a backup activity for when the first one falls flat after eight minutes. Small kids burn through plans fast.
What is a s’mores bar?
Honestly? It is just the s’mores ingredients laid out so people build their own instead of you assembling forty of them. Graham crackers, chocolate squares, marshmallows, set in little bowls with a cute sign over the top.
For the kid party I skipped the actual roasting and did microwaved marshmallows at the table, because no way was I handing four-year-olds flaming sticks. Same fun, fewer burns. I learned to put the chocolate out last or it is gone before anyone roasts a thing.
What is partyisntover campfire bimmer about?
I had to look this one up because a camp mom asked me and I had no idea. As far as I can tell it is just somebody’s username or hashtag floating around the party-decor corner of the internet, not an actual product or a thing you need.
So do not stress about it for your own party. It has nothing to do with throwing a kid a good camping afternoon. Printed signs, snacks, a game or two, that is the whole formula.
What is a bonfire party?
A bonfire party is the bigger-fire, older-crowd cousin of what I threw. Real fire, dark out, people standing around it late. The seven and eight year olds at Theo’s party kept insisting ours was a bonfire because it sounded cooler.
For actual little kids I would not do a true bonfire. We kept the fire pit roped off and leaned on string lights and the nighttime printables for that after-dark feel. All the campfire mood, none of me watching a toddler near open flame.
Before You Pack Up
Theo’s party ran two hours and the cleanup took about twenty minutes because most of the decor was paper I could recycle or stickers the kids took home on their arms. He still talks about camp Theo. I have the welcome sign in the camper now.
If you are throwing one of these, print your stuff a few days early, not at 11pm like I tried to do for the first trip I ever planned. Grab two or three of these files, run them at the library, and you have stations ready before the first sticky hand arrives.
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.
