i want to make a memory today - suggestion??

Place marking so I remember to look at this when I have more time later. I had a shitty childhood but am trying really hard to make my own children's different. My Sister randomly visited with her 2 girls today and the kids all had such fun together :)

Have to run and collect the DC from nursery, but just wanted to say thanks for this thread. You have inspired me to sit and think what fun things I can do with them over my holiday next week.

I will be back to look for more ideas here later.

Inspired by this thread, I phoned the local airfield and they would love to have us visit. No flying until the snow clears though!

Britchic - you've just reminded me - another one we do is buy huge canvases from the pound store whenever they have them in, and then invite friends round and spread out the canvases in the garden to do massive abstracts on them. DC have filled water pistols with paint and shot at the canvases, or squirted them or spun them round. Also use spray paints. Great fun.

We do film nights too. Lights off, home made popcorn and lots of blankets and cushions -good for this weather.

We have cafe nights (aka left overs nights) where they write a menu and everyone chooses something different from it. They light candles and pour the drinks. V cute.

Other homey fun things to do, when the weather is cold, are making volcanoes (papier mache mountain over a glass of baking soda, then add vinegar and stand back), making marshmallows or turkish delight, making chocolate truffles.

We've done home cinema days with ds. We'd go to the library and rent a dvd, come home and he'd make our tickets. We'd make some popcorn, draw all the curtains, and snuggle up and watch a film together. Somehow it seemed more exciting than just putting a dvd on. I think I got that idea from mn.

Spontaneous things I have done with DC:

gone on walks with a secret stash of golden chocolate coins and hidden them in hollows of trees then told DC that goblins left sweets for children - could they find any. used to do that lots and they fell for it for years , while I got a great walk from it!

Taken train to London to see how many different types of transport we can do in a day, including Boris bikes, Clipper river boat, driverless Docklands LR, cable car, top of double decker. (This could be more of a boy thing!) Not yet done the duck bus-boat.

Built a bonfire in the back garden and baked cheese potatoes, bananas and roasted marshmallows on it. Good even on cold days!

Sometimes we go for a walk along the Thames path with lots of 20p coins and give them to all the buskers we like.

Camping in back garden (not the weather for it now though!)

So many good ideas here! Lets move it to classics please MNHQ!

What a great thread! I've written all the ideas that have inspired me in my notebook so I don't forget... thank you OP for starting it!

My contributions...

A fairy hunt where I sneak out early and leave sweets/treats around the garden, and the kids stumble across them, then realise the fairies have been!

Movie night where we cover the floor with cushions, blankets etc, turn out the lights, have popcorn and watch a great film.

As PPs have said, making dens - chairs, all the blankets/sheets we have and lots of cushions.

Giving the kids a massive piece of paper and seeing what they do with it (today a map of England with them drawing pictures of landmarks/friends, plus a few more printed off the computer and stuck on).

Any type of cooking... pancakes for breakfast, cakes etc, with them doing absolutely everything, including breaking the eggs!

I love some of the ideas on this thread.

We do a similar one to the den idea. Ds is 2.5 and obsessed with astronauts so we create a pretend rocket in the hall and fly to the moon (the sitting room) and dig for moon rocks and practise jumping and then he gets a special astronaut picnic (with a carton of juice, he thinks this is terribly exciting!).

I'm going to 'borrow' the gallery ugly baby comp and the toss a coin for left/right. We do some of things but in a sensible way.

Thanks for this thread, sat here with a coffee, dd playing upstairs, thinking what can we do today.

So we are going to the local beach, taking our puppy to experience sand and sea for the first time, then go for tea and cake.

OK, Den made in living room here - i suspect there are many, the length and bredth of the UK - ours has "snow" and DD is a Husky - obviously

This thread takes me back, dad worked for the railways and got free travel in Europe, remember being woken up a 4am and asked if I'd like to go to Paris for the day......have never forgotten the excitement, need to do the same for DS when he is older.
In the meantime this has prompted me to take DS on a train for the first time on Saturday and will definately be calling the fire station

sorry, got your name wrong!

Lucyellensmummy it's only local buses so never too far from home but some of them the terminus is a good hour from home....plan to go a bit further as they get older

One of the things my mum and I used to do when I was little was buy a 'Rover' bus ticket - a set price ticket and you could use it as much as you liked for the day. Then we'd get on the first bus that came and go to the end stop. If it was somewhere interesting we'd spend some time there,otherwise we'd get another bus and see where it took us, and so on for the whole day. Can you still get these tickets now?

I so want to do the jump on the bus and see where we end up thing but its just so cold does it notice that im a wuss when it comes to the weather

Thanks to this thread I've just made a den under the dining table and the dc are eating a picnic lunch in there now.

DD1 wants to do a 'sleepover' in there after lunch so it might even buy me a bit of peace.

Fab thread!

Lucy Bedgebury Pinetum is fab . If you're into camping then there's a really brilliant campsite very near - just google Bedgebury Camping

My best memories of my dad is that he used to pick me up from school on Thursday if he was working nights (on the railway) and we would get on the train to go to margate (where he was based) to collect his wages - i was allowed to go on one ride (always the up and down horses) at Dreamland. There was a zoo too and one day there was a man with a lion cub on a lead - he wouldn't let me stroke it though, my dad made a face at him. Dreamland isn't there anymore, although i think the scenic railway is. Margate is sort of enjoying a bit of a revival and we often visit the turner gallery - would definately recommend their Sunday workshops for kids. Definately recommend avoiding the shop - stupidly expensive.

I really wish this weather would improve

Making a den has to be at the top of my list of memories. Either in the garden, woods or under the dining table then eating picnic lunch together in the den.
Food painting is fun. Get the kids to make disgusting mushy purees (peas are great, as are berries), paint plants and trees then watch the birds or if you're lucky squirrels clean up the mess :)

Lego days are great too!

Two easters ago we spontaneously went down to Bedgebury Pinetum in Goudhurst (kent) - its quite a trek from us but it was fab. Packed a picnic and were tres organised. Absolutely wonderful day - one of those rare warm days, there are 10 playgrounds in a woodland walk - you can literally take all day. Watch the daredevils lunatics doing the "go ape" thing with heart in mouth thinking, you are not getting me up there, no way jose! We made a Den as it seemed to be the thing to do - they were everywhere. Then there is the actual pinetum area - stunning azaleas, rhodedendrons and all types of, um, pine trees, i think - huge lake - its brilliant. It has now become our easter pilgramage - we had to go last easter and DD flatly refuses to go any other time of the year She is very miffed this year as we are now complete with bike rack and tagalong bike it has just been too cold for the sort of day that we want to spend there. We said maybe next weekend, but am praying for it to warm up a bit before the end of the easter holiday. Would definately recommend to anyone in the south east - its free entry but you have to pay £10 to park, its well worth it though. Forest bike trails and there is bike hire if you don't take your own. It is a good memory for us.

We are going to make our own afternoon tea later in the week instead of wait to save up......off to scour local charity shops for a tea pot in a bit. that way dd2 can join in without me worrying about behaviour.

going to bake some cakes first though.

will probably pinch some of the other ideas here too like the direction choosing in the forest......there's a small wood a bus ride away that i know well enough to take the kids using my bus ticket so am going to do a picnic one day later in the week and off we go

my two like just jumping on a bus randomly and seeing where it goes sometimes....usually nowhere exciting but a cuppa in a cafe and turn around to come back is enough excitement at 3 & 6yo anyway