One of the things I carry with me at camp in my backpack is my “bag of tricks”. I use a small mesh Eagle Creek travel bag to hold the items.
In it I have an assortment of items that come in handy during down time at camp, including
- a pad of paper
- 2 pens
- crayons
- deck of cards
- dice
- stopwatch
- hacky sack
- a couple of Koosh balls
- an easily teachable magic trick or two
Occasionally, I’ll find something at the dollar store, or elsewhere, that will catch my eye and I’ll think, “That would be a great addition to my Bag-of-Tricks”. In other words, there are no rules on what a counselor should put in his/her bag, as long as it is filled with items that will help them keep their campers engaged during downtime.
We also keep trivia cards and mad libs in ours.
Love it!
In the past we put a 20Q ball in the bags. The kids loved it!
One of my favorite things to do with campers is mind teaser games and riddles. Example: Green Glass Door Good Line or Bad Line. Usually these take campers a few days to figure out and they are constantly working together to find out the answer!