Traditionally, camping is all about the simple life and travelling light. But once you have kids, it's about cramming as much as possible into your people mover and attempting to replicate your home life.

One can go too far. We have seen friends unpack a giant pepper mill, a drum kit, a Welsh flag plus flagpole, and a saxophone. And one family even takes their own toilet. All unnecessary. Top equipment you could bring might include a football, a bat and ball, a small musical instrument, binoculars (good for stargazing, birdwatching and general voyeurism), glowsticks (easier to find the kids in the dark), facepaints, skipping rope, Frisbee, chalk, bubble mixture, pocket microscope, pens, scrap paper and a notebook. Quite the handful, and car-full.

For townies, camping is about communing with the great outdoors (until it starts raining, whereupon the kids are promptly put in the tent with their DS). City folk are surprised by the number of stars you can see on a clear night when all that urban light pollution is left behind. There are several smartphone apps (Pocket Universe, Starwalk or Google Skymap, for example, to identify what you're looking at. These will make the kids feel like they're still plugged in, while you're secretly priming them to be the new Brian Cox.

Here are some other enriching ways to groom your kids for creative greatness from the back end of a field.

Art projects

Look out for interesting textures, such as tree bark or fossils in rocks, place plain paper over the top and do rubbings with a wax crayon. Or encourage giant nature sculptures (cue mass pine-cone collecting).

Scavenger hunts

Reel off or write down a list of items for them to find and bring back or photograph. These could be lateral ("something bright" = a torch, a clever child, or a garish T-shirt) or literal (three people's autographs, something red, a tennis ball).

Trails

A simple trail could consist of sticks arranged in arrow shapes, or chalk marks (which will wash off, so it doesn't count as graffiti). If you can muster the energy, make actual clues to lead to the next location. These could be anagrams (REEL MET = ELM TREE), cryptic (2x5+T = TENT), or geographical (10 paces NW). Arrange the trail so that it cunningly leads them back to you in time for tea, or to the camp cafe for a treat.

Alternatively, giving them a map route to follow (either OS or hand-drawn) makes them feel like pirates, treasure hunters or explorers, and it's educational.

Silhouettes

Make the most of all that canvas. Guess who's in the tent from their silhouette. The person could disguise their shape by stooping or getting closer/further from the torch. And you can fashion some dastardly shadow-villains with just a sleeping bag.

Circle games

These work well around a campfire, at least the sedentary ones do. For example:

• Memory games: such as "I went to the campsite shop and bought…" with each person adding a new item to the ever-growing list of items.

• Alphabet games: for example, working through a category like countries (Angola, Belgium, Canada…), or using adjectives (My cat is an adventurous/boisterous/cunning/daft cat).

• Storytelling: Make up a circular story, passing a story "baton" round the group so that the next person continues the tale.

Form an alfresco orchestra

Encourage your kids to find things to make sounds with: hollow objects to drum, sticks to bash together, blades of grass to whistle on, bottles to blow over, pebbles or seeds to shake in a cup.

Note: it's best out in the open rather than in a packed campsite with potentially irritable neighbours.