June is so many things, especially to families with school-aged children. First and foremost it’s the official end of the school year and beginning of a summer’s worth of hot weather, bored children and costly vacations. But it can mean so many more momentous things.

It’s a little known fact that June is Great Outdoors Month, and the last week in June is National Camping Week – the two just seem to naturally go hand-in-hand.

There’s nothing that can bring you closer to nature than camping, i.e. roughing it. And nothing can bring you closer to your own surroundings than roughing it in your own backyard. It’s the ultimate in green living, only for most of us electricity addicts it’s best left in small doses.

Think of all of the green living you could compact into one weekend of camping out in your own backyard:

• Turn off every power source in your house while you’re out enjoying nature. Running the AC all summer equates to approximately half of your energy bills for an entire year!
• By banning what I call The Boxes (TV, computer, video games) for the weekend you’ll not only use less power, you’ll be forced into quality family time.
• Because finding and preparing food out in nature can be a bit of a challenge you’ll likely only consume exactly what you need and nothing more.
• Learning about your immediate environment is priceless; it helps you to understand the area in which you live – if you really take it all in you’ll notice much more about your surroundings than you ever have before.

Here are a few great activities you can do to keep busy during your camping excursion:

• Gather medium sized rocks and place them in a circle, then gather up fallen branches and make a pile in the middle of the circle. After the sun goes down, light the bonfire and gather around for ghost stories, sing-alongs or making s’mores. If you’re looking to keep your kids occupied, get them to come up with ideas for starting the fire without the use of matches or lighters.
• Take a nature hike and see if you can forage any food. Many wooded or thicketed areas contain yummy treats like wild berries, honeysuckle and edible flowers/weeds. If you’re unsure of what’s edible, check a book out of the library to keep with you during your camp-out.
• Need some night lights? Remember to bring along some glass or clear plastic jars with holes punched into the lids and have the kids gather as many fireflies at dusk as they can. They make awesome and fun night lights, but to be kind, let them go in the morning.
• Another great resource for campers is to check out a Native American craft book. In it you’ll find all sorts of tools of the great outdoors that can be made exclusively out of items found in nature, just like the Native Americans did.
• Be sure to bring along your cameras. While you’re living off the land you’ll certainly see some fascinating wildlife. Either find a secluded spot and sit still in it for a while or while taking a nature walk try to shoot as many critters and birds as you can find. You won’t have to kill a thing, but you’ll have some fun memories to keep forevermore.

You can construct a fun camping trip in whatever sized yard you have, but if you long to rough it on something a bit, well, rougher or just plain larger, you might want to ask around and see if someone you know (or a friend or relative of someone you know) has a piece of nature that would suit your camp-out. If all else fails, many areas have parks and campgrounds that are open to the public. It might cost you a small fee to enter and/or spend the night, but these areas typically have even more great activities like lakes for swimming, paddling or fishing in, hiking and biking trails, and other campers for sharing your experiences with.

Happy National Camping Week!

Photos from morgueFile