Tuesday 27 July 2010 Six weeks holiday can seem like an eternity when you’re faced with entertaining small children. We hope you’ll find our top tips useful for keeping little ones busy and prevent the inevitable cry of ‘I’m bored’ from them and ‘help’ from you!
1. Plan a beach treasure hunt. If you’re on the beach and fancy five minutes to yourself create a treasure hunt for your kids. Write a list of items that can be found on a beach e.g. shells, seaweed, bird feathers, driftwood... and send your kids searching. If you’re in need of some real quiet time, add a few items that will be hard to find! Keep an eye on them whilst they comb the beach for goodies and reward them when they return with their bounty.
2. Raining outside? Close the curtains. Turn off the lights. Turn up the music. Dance! It’ll make you and your kids feel great and with the curtains closed your neighbours won’t be any the wiser!
3. Camp out in the back garden. Pack up a picnic and pitch up your tent in the back garden. You don’t need to go far to have fun!
4. Bake! Everyone loves cake. Adult t-shirts make great ‘cover all’ aprons on small kids. Cover them up and get out the baking ingredients. Cupcakes are easy to make, quick to cook and you can spend ages decorating them with icing, raisins, chocolate buttons and even edible glitter.
5. Pili Pala's personal favorite! Snail races. Cut out a large circle of cardboard and either paint or mark concentric circles on it. Send the kids searching around the garden for snails and once everyone has a snail each place them in the centre of the cardboard and watch to see which snail makes it to the outside of the circle. Make sure you play this outside or you’ll be searching high and low for the snails!
6. Get together with other mums and hire the village hall. Play party games such as musical chairs, sleeping lions, stick in the mud... A cheap way of having a party with no need for presents. Your kids will have a great time and you’ll have a chance to catch up with other mums!
7. Have a weekly theme! You can devise your own little projects to occupy little minds. Go for bugs one week and go bug hunting; read the Hungry Caterpillar; hire ‘Bug’s Life’ and create model bugs using egg cartons and pipe cleaners! Other themes could include monsters, fairies, countries, super heroes or magic – try thinking of themes which have books or films associated so that you have some quiet time whilst they read or watch a film!
8. Build a castle! Visit a castle for some inspiration or ‘Google’ some images of castles. Make a plan and then raid the supermarket for cardboard. Construct a castle using the cardboard and some masking tape, painting it and cutting out windows. The bigger the better!
9. Make spoon people. Buy wooden spoons from supermarkets’ value range and dress them up using felt, left over fabric and wool. Paint or draw faces on and host your own spoon ‘puppet show’!
10. Be a local tourist. Visit your local Tourist Information Centre and rediscover what’s great about your area. Take your camera, write a postcard to the grandparents and treat your day out as if you’re visiting the area for the first time – even better if you can find the time and money for an ice cream!
Enjoy! Let us know how you get on and send in some photos – we love hearing from you.
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