Flashlight
Play tent or something else to make a tent (blanket and chairs, blanket and card table, etc)
Water bottles
Homemade trail mix
Sleeping bag or blankets
Candle
One evening a few weeks ago, I told E that we were going to camp out the next night after dinner. I told her that she and her dad had an important job to do for our camp-out--make homemade trail mix. Since my husband was going to the grocery store that day anyway, he picked out a bunch of things to go in the trail mix, and he and my daughter made it while I was at work. He said she was so excited about it (probably at least in part because she was putting M & Ms in the trail mix.)
After dinner the next night, I told E we had to get all of our camping supplies, so we went around the house gathering the things we would need. We then "drove" to the campsite (which was in our living room). I set up the "tent" which was a blanket draped over some chairs. I put E's sleeping bag inside. We collected "wood" for our campfire (a bunch of wood blocks that I had scattered all over the living room floor outside the tent). When it was nighttime, we turned off the lights, lit a candle, and used our flashlights. We "slept" in the tent and also ate the trail mix. E had a lot of fun, and this was a pretty simple (and cheap, since we already had all of these things) activity.
We "camped out" on a warm fall night. If it had been cold out, we probably would have lit a fire in our wood-burning fireplace so that could have been our campfire. We sometimes roast marshmallows and make S'mores when we build a fire in our fireplace, so that would have definitely added to the activity. I think we'll do that sometime this winter.
You can just use things you already have around the house for this activity, but I have also seen a really neat play camping equipment set online: http://www.amazon.com/Pretend-and-Play-Camp-Set/dp/B00021Z2FK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322622982&sr=8-1
I didn't really take any pictures of this activity, but here is our tent:
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