Field plans for dadsOne page per plan · Friday letter

Home / Start here / Print pack

Your print pack

1 field card, one per page: A first campout in the backyard.

Back to Start here

Each card prints on its own US Letter page. No printer? Choose Save as PDF in the print screen (on an iPhone, tap the Share icon there, then Save to Files) and print it later. If the button doesn't work, use your browser's Print.

Dad Field Manual · Field card 120 · Classic Field Skills

A first campout in the backyard

The backyard is the best first campsite there is: real dark, real night sounds, and the house twenty steps away. Pitch the shelter before dark, eat at camp, and sleep out, knowing anyone can go inside at any time.

Time
Overnight
Cost
$0
Ages
4 to 12
Where
Backyard

Since 1911: The 1911 book hangs canvas squares from a pole or rope and pegs them down. A modern dome tent does the same job in ten minutes, and a tarp still works. Two things changed: don't dig a trench around the tent (the National Park Service now says good campsites are found, not made), and keep anything that burns fuel out of the tent, because CPSC warns that heaters and lanterns in tents can cause carbon monoxide poisoning. Check the National Weather Service forecast first: a tent is not a safe place in a thunderstorm.

What you need

  • A tent, or a tarp about 7 to 9 feet square with rope and stakes
  • Sleeping bags or blankets, a pad or folded blanket under each, and pillows
  • A flashlight or headlamp for each camper
  • A camp dinner and breakfast you can eat on a blanket

Backyard camp: read this first

  • Nothing that burns in the tent. No candles, heaters, fuel lanterns or stoves. Battery lights only. Keep any grill well away from the tent.
  • Check the forecast. If you hear thunder, everyone goes inside the house. A tent is not safe in a thunderstorm. Wait 30 minutes after the last rumble.
  • Leave the back door unlocked and a porch light on, so the path to the bathroom is clear.
  • Pick a spot with no dead branches overhead, away from the grill, pool and garden tools.

Steps

  1. Check the sky and pick the spot. Check tonight's NWS forecast. Pick flat, slightly high ground with no dead branches overhead.
  2. Pitch the shelter before dark. Pitch the tent before dark. No tent: hang one corner of a square tarp and stake the rest.
  3. Rig a porch for camp dinner. Hang a tarp's front edge from a rope between two trees and stake the back down for a porch.
  4. Eat at camp. Eat dinner at camp, then brush teeth and use the bathroom inside.
  5. Flashlight games. Play shadow puppets on the tent wall and flashlight tag, then lie still and count night sounds.
  6. Lights out, with a bail-out plan. Tell them they can go inside any time, together, and it still counts. A flashlight by each head.
  7. Breakfast and strike camp. Eat breakfast at camp, dry the tent in the sun, then pack it up.

If it stalls

  • If it rains or storms, move camp indoors and finish with the living-room campout.
  • If a kid wants to go in at midnight, go in together, without a sigh. Next time they'll stay longer.
Hours slept outside
Signed off: can do this.Signed by Date