Build a Large Wooden Playpen for Multiple Children

Camping with a large family of people of multiple ages can be challenging, unless you preplan. In the case of our family, we have multiple children who range from a few months old up to five who need constant supervision.

Therefore, our family began planning what to do with all these little ones, so that they were safe from the fire pits, grills, and of course the water at our private campground. We knew that a play pen or play area of sorts was needed, but there is not a wooden playpen big enough for these little children.

Our solution was to create a wooden playpen enclosure that was all-natural and looked as if it belonged in the campsite. It was made with standing young healthy trees to provide some shade, as well as some smaller trees we attached to it.

In the first photo, my brother in the blue and a nephew in the red shirt are working on this large wooden playpen. They are fixing a large sapling in place, as they did around the entire perimeter of the giant wooden playpen.

The wooden playpen resembles a large lopsided heart, a true testament of what these little children mean to us all. We simply let nature dictate the shape, and used the trees that were in that small grove as the sides. The enclosure is centrally located in the middle of the campsite, and these little ones are secure from any dangers.

The toys you see outside among the trees all will fit in this enclosure along with other ride on toys, doll houses and of course a few little tykes slides. The area was picked clean of rocks the little ones would eat, holes in the ground were filled, and green indoor and out door carpet was placed around the area. It makes a wonderful little place for the little ones to play.

Most of this work was done when there were no little children present, but you will see that my 9-month-old grandson crawled into playpen. The one side of the wooden playpen was still open when we visited one day and as we all stood around talking he crawled right in, my boyfriend could not resist taking a photograph.