BA50 Talkers
The summer holidays are creeping closer and you might be feeling a little panicky at the prospect of six weeks, devoid of any plans or a chance of escaping the house (and the kids).
Don’t panic, simply sit down with your calendar and schedule one of these great activities into each of the six weeks ahead:
- Duvet day
It’s no secret that Britain doesn’t always enjoy glorious summers of sunshine and warmth, that’s why you need to be prepared when it comes to rainy days. To save your sanity and anything from getting broken in the house, plan a duvet day.
The kids will love dragging their bed covers downstairs and you can let them choose what they want to watch as well as letting them wear pyjamas all day. Pick them up some new pyjamas as a little treat, you can find cool Monster High fashion at LamaLoLi if that’s their favourite show, or pick out some Transformer themed short and t-shirt combos.
- Bake off
Another idea for a rainy day is to plan a bake off in the style of the fun TV show. You act as the judge and get the kids to come up with the craziest (but edible) cakes they can come up with and then get busy creating them in the kitchen together. The participants get a fun prize and everyone gets to enjoy some cake afterwards.
- Nature scavenger hunt
Arm your kids with a checklist, a pen and a bucket and send them out in the garden on a nature scavenger hunt. Get them to find things like a fluffy feather, a certain shape leaf and different kind of insects. Tick off the live discoveries (there will be lots of ladybirds, bees and butterflies to spot in the summer) and ask them to collect the other items in the bucket to take in and look at in more detail together. Here’s a great tick list for inspiration.
- Do some gardening
Not only is this a great excuse to get some of those flowerbeds sorted that you’ve been meaning to do for the past few months but it will also keep the kids busy.
Pick up some flowers to transfer into pots and sunflower seeds and task them with planting them in their new homes, teach them how to properly take them from their original pots and transfer them – you don’t want any broken stems or roots left behind!
- Have a sports day
Kids love to be active, they might just need a little push in this technological age and a sports day is the perfect opportunity to take them away from the iPad and running around. Set up an egg and spoon race, a water balloon relay and wheelbarrow races, dish out chocolate coins as medals (you’re bound to have some still good to eat left over from Christmas somewhere, surely) and make sure you join in too!
- Become superheroes for the day
Kids love superheroes and with Marvel currently dominating the movie scene they’ll love creating capes to become like their favourite characters. Here’s a really simple no sew tutorial, once your cape is made spend the morning decorating them with glitter glue, beads and sequins then the rest of the afternoon saving citizens in distress and fighting villains.
These activities don’t require much in terms of preparation and also cost very little to do, which makes them great to plan around day trips. No more empty days that could have been potentially filled with endless whines of ‘I’m bored’….