What To Do With Kids During The Summer Holidays?

Ahhhh summer break! I remember fondly all the adventures my brothers and I would have on those seemingly endless hot summer days. Taking our bikes out from dawn to dusk, hastily packed sandwiches and bottles of water for the journey, swaying from a bag hoisted onto the handlebars. Lazy days floating along the river on our tractor inner tube tyres; before the council banned kids from pestering the local garages! Days spent outside playing with friends before scampering home for dinner – if we took exams based on our ability to accurately guess when to leave for home, we would have all achieved A*! Of course this all happened before mobile phones and tablets and PS3’s became a part of a kid’s daily life. So what can you do to encourage kids off their phones and games during the summer holidays? I’ve compiled a little list of things to do and along the way, I came across a new term – micro adventures. For busy mums and dads this could be just what you need to keep the kids entertained while also juggling a hectic workday. You get to spend quality time with the kids and catch up with work when you’re back home.

Feeding The Ducks at Your Local Park

You don’t need to spend a lot of money over the summer break to include micro adventures! A simple trip to the park to feed the birds (remember, bread is not good for birds so use duck seed instead) means you get to spend time with your little ones and they get to appreciate nature. Keeping score of how many swans or other birds they see in the park is a fun way to get in some number learning too!

Get Muddy!

We all know kids love mud! The messier the better. One easy way of keeping the kids entertained is to create their very own mud splodge in your garden – don’t worry I am not expecting you to turn your lovely garden into a mini marsh, you can keep the mud pool contained by using a large plastic sandpit container or building a small enclosure using wooden edging from garden centres. Whatever and however you do it, it will keep the kids entertained and only a hop, skip and a jump away from the bath!

Get Adventuring

Go Ape! This is a fantastic way to engage older kids in something other than mobile phones and tiktok. It really gets kids to think about how they are going to get from one tree to another in a fun and safe way. You can go with them (why should they have all the fun?) or leave them to it as you sip an iced coffee under the shade of beautiful trees.

Get Crafty

On those rainy days – and yes, we will get them at some point – it’s even more vital you have some indoor style activities ready to go to prevent boredom and tantrums! For older kids: Collage is a great way to use their imagination and for re-using old magazines! If they are stumped as to what to make, you can give them ideas, like create your ideal holiday or design a new animal using images from magazines. And it doesn’t have to be just paper, they can use found objects too such as interesting leaves or moss or broken bits of jewellery, to create found art.\

For toddlers: Making pictures from handprints combines a whole load of motor skill building and hand eye co-ordination. From abstract art to bunnies, it will be fun finding out what your young one creates. Poster paint is a cheap and vibrant material and it washes off easily too!\

Or for the more minimalist amongst us - fingerprint art. Keeping it pure, black ink on white paper always looks classy, no matter what delights your little ones choose to create. Or you can add pops of colour or go completely colour crazy! Just make sure the ink is non-toxic. And here’s the best bit. You can send those ink prints into Image Casting and we can turn them into beautiful hand engraved fingerprint charms. They get to have fun and you get to have a unique charm of their fingerprints to carry with you throughout the years. More information on fingerprint charms can be found here

Picnics in the Park

If you have a little more time, taking a picnic to the park, especially on a lovely sunny day, is a wonderful way to spend time as a family. You can even get the kids to help prepare and make the sandwiches! Taking games such as rounders and cricket or even a Frisbee, means you all get a little bit fitter too. And eating that ice cream after won’t feel so bad ;) I hope you have enjoyed this little list of things to do – and if you are interested in professionally hand engraved fingerprint charms of your loved ones, please get in touch!