There are lots of hula hoop games and activities for camping.  Hoops take up little storage space, can be used on land or water, and appeal to all ages.  Hoops spin, define a space, and provide a hole or opening and there are almost endless ways to play with these concepts.  Add in the space and natural environment of camping and your options grow even more.  Here are just three ways to use hula hoops to keep the kids entertained for hours in the great outdoors, but they are likely to be the stimulus for you and your children to create many more.

Hanging Hoop
This simple set-up provides the basis for multiple hula hoop games and activities.  Hang a hoop, or two or three, from a tree.  If you are using multiple hoops you can hang them at different heights.  You can throw balls, sticks, beans bags, frisbies, water balloons . . . through the hoops.  You can try throwing things through the hoops while they are still, and while they are moving.  You can throw things starting from varying distances away, or while you are moving.  You can throw things to one another through the hoop.  You can swing the hoops.  You can climb through the hoops.  You can decorate them like a wreath with natural materials. Let your own and your kids imagination free.

Hoop Rolling
Children love rolling hoops upright along the ground.  You can add some challenge or variation to this by using a stick to move the hoop along, or using items such as pine cones or rocks to create a simple obstacle course to navigate the hoop through.  You can also see if you can ‘flick’ the hoop and get it to roll away from you and then back on it’s own like a boomerang.

Ring Toss
Place a hoop on the ground, stand back and see what you can toss into it – sticks, pine cones, shells, stones.  Have competitions.  If you have a small hoop and a larger hoop then you can nest them inside each other on the ground and designate points for getting items into the different sized rings.  A great tip for super creatives who want to make their own fabric bean bags: if you fill the bean bags with round plastic beads rather than the traditional legumes then you can easily wash them.

Want to buy a hoop?  In2hula sells quality fully New Zealand made hoops in a range of sizes and colours. 

Christmas Special!

Use the coupon code HOOPJOY to get 10% off all hoops until 25 December 2017.