Camping and the Great Outdoors

Engage your child in outdoor play, nature outings, and environmental explorations. Chase and be chased in a game of capture the flag. Use the power of the sun to craft your own shadow prints. Explore the stars on a late night walk. Create a field guide to your neighborhood. Through 52 ideas—some classic and some new—Let's Go Outside! by Jennifer Ward offers a range of activities perfect for children ages 8 to 12. Whether you're in the country, the city, or anywhere in between, this book is sure to help you get outside—and run, dance, hike, or camp—with your preteen. Sections of the book include: 

• Back to Basics: Reconnecting with twists on traditional games and activities such as Capture the Flag
• Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Picnics, doing homework outdoors, and socializing opportunities outdoors
• Outdoor Adventures: Canoeing, biking, and camping
• Environmental Experiments: Ways to explore how nature works (from Amazon.com)

Plan your family camping adventure with The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping With Kids by Helen Olsson! Whether you’re a first-time camper or a veteran backpacker befuddled by the challenges of carting a brood—and all the requisite gear—into the great outdoors, here you’ll find all the tips and tools you need to plan the perfect nature adventure with your family. Humorous and irreverent, yet always authoritative, this guide to camping with kids, from babies through pre-teens, is filled with checklists, smart tips, recipes, games, activities, and art projects.

Helen Olsson, a seasoned camper and mother of three, shares lessons learned over the years of nature outings with her own family. Learn the basics of family camping, from choosing a destination and packing gear to setting up a campsite and keeping little ones safe. Create the perfect camp menu with simple and tasty recipe ideas. Discover foolproof tips and tactics for keeping kids happy and entertained while hiking. Explore nature through clever and creative camp arts and craft projects. This guide is your game plan to unplugging from the digital world and connecting your kids to nature. Whether it’s roasting marshmallows around a crackling campfire or stretching out on a camp mat to gaze at the stars, the memories you’ll be making will last a lifetime. (from Amazon.com)

Want to save cash, your child's imagination and possibly even the planet? Then Born To Be Wild: Hundreds of Free Nature Activities for Families by Hattie Garlick is the book you need.

Packed with great photos of real families in the outdoors, Born to Be Wild contains easy-to-follow instructions for activities that require nothing more sophisticated than a small person's imagination and access to a little outdoor space.

Nature lays on magical materials for free each season, from fallen leaves and twigs, molted feathers, sand and shells, to mud, puddles and rain. Everything else you'll need for these activities is already hiding in your cupboards at home. No expensive art supplies of outward-bound kit required. All you need are the toolkit items at the front of the book - ordinary household essentials like scraps of paper, string, glue, recycled food containers and an empty jar or two.

Along the way Hattie talks to families, organizations and communities who have rebuilt their relationships with nature with extreme or inspiring results, and she introduces scientists, psychologists and other experts who explain why, as modern families, we should revive our waning relationships with nature, whatever age or stage we're at. (from Amazon.com)

If you think camping means big mosquitoes, big headaches, and big effort, this book is for you. Camping Made Easy by Michael Rutter presents a practical, informative approach to carefree camping. After putting to rest the myths concerning the hardships and frustrations of camping, Michael Rutter presents nuts-and-bolts information on every aspect of camping, relating advice garnered from his twenty-plus years of experience. You will learn how to select the right equipment, including tents, stoves, sleeping bags, lanterns, backpacks, and more; plan for a painless camping trip; pack efficiently; select a good campground; set up camp; take fun day hikes and more.

With more than 300 photographs and illustrations to help you get started, you will be setting up camp, stoking the campfire, and relaxing before you know it. Whether you are setting up a tent in a local campground or planning a cross-country camping odyssey, this comprehensive guide will answer all your camping questions. (from Amazon.com)

Ready for Summer Fun?

     Tired of the same old summer activities? Wish you and your family could reconnect with nature? Not quite sure how to pull that off? My friends, you are in luck! Let me introduce you to The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping with Kids: How to Plan Memorable Family Adventures & Connect Kids to Nature by Helen Olsson. I know, I know, it’s a mouthful to say; but this tiny book is chocked full of juicy info for camping with the kiddos! Ms. Olsson has handily arranged her book in four different parts: Getting Started, In the Field, Activities and Adventures, and last, but certainly not least; Hygiene, First Aid and Safety. Even if you won’t be going camping until after the summer has wound down, I heartily suggest checking out this book now to give yourself an idea of what you are going to need to pull off a spectacular adventure.
     The first section covers the planning. When are we going? Where are we going? How long will we stay? What gear are we taking with us? What about food and water? Most importantly; what will I wear? If you have small children or, if you haven’t really been camping before, I would highly recommend going over this part of the book a couple of times to get yourself prepared.
     Once you’re all organized and have the kids psyched about spending time in the woods with all sorts of critters, parts two and three give you the low-down on how to actually pull this off. How do I set up my campsite? Part two tells you how and where to build your campfire, planning & prepping camp meals, how to clean up the camp kitchen and how to break down the camp. Part three deals with all the adventures to be had in the great outdoors. Activities like hiking, stargazing, fishing, swimming, rafting, and bicycling are all covered. Also in part three are the activities to stave off boredom: reading, coloring, bird watching, ghost stories, and don’t forget the crafts!
     Part four is all about hygiene, first aid, and safety. Chapter 8, for instance is titled: “Staying Clean in a World of Dirt”. This section of the book is dedicated to all the things that can go wrong and how to prepare for the aches, pains, and bugs that you will most certainly encounter on your trip. How do you navigate in the backcountry? What will you do if there is a thunderstorm? Can you drink the water from that lovely little stream? What about critters; big and small? All of these questions will be answered in this section of the book.
     Peppered throughout this book, Ms. Olsson has graciously included “Smart Tip” sections and various checklists to help a family get things together for their trip. In the back, packing checklists and lists of online resources have been included to help you plan a wonderful and, hopefully, meaningful trip with your family. Have fun and, Bon Voyage!

Teach Your Kids the Joy of Slow Cooking

The library currently has several "Fix-It and Forget-It" Slow Cooker Cookbooks in its collection. Each one showcases a different type of meal such as entertaining, diabetic cooking, Christmas recipes or feasting with your slow cooker. I am very excited to be able to tell you about the latest entry in the slow cooker series, Fix-It and Forget-It Kids' Cookbook: 50 Recipes to Make in a Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good. The cookbook contains a series of recipes divided into the categories of breakfasts, lunches, snacks, dinner and dessert. There is a great beginning section introducing kids to the characteristics of slow cookers and encouraging parents to let their kids cook with them by giving tips on how they can help. There are tips on how to measure, how to follow a recipe, safety tips and descriptions of the equpment you'll need to create these fabulous recipes. I especially enjoyed the lip-smacking lasagna and gooey chocolate pudding cake recipes and plan on preparing them with some favorite children in my life! The recipes are straight-forward, easy to use and the print on the page is big enough for a child to to read comfortably. I encourage you to don your apron and use this book to help your kids have some fun cooking time with you. If you enjoy this cookbook, I suggest you try out some recipes in one or more of the other books in this series.