to want to know your low cost ideas of things to do in the holidays

[carriedababi]

trying to think up some ideas

so sick of the park

Do you have any good local museums that do demonstrations. My 3 yr old loved the bubbles demonstration at the science museum in London which was free.

If you have outside space how about a paddling pool? Tesco do a brill one for a fiver. If your brave you can add stuff to the water. Like shaving foam.

Drawing with chalk on the paving on the back garden is good too. Get them to lie down and draw round them or make a sun dial by drawing round a shadow of a stick at different times of day.

Go and watch the trains at the station.

My kids quite like riding around on buses or trains. Sitting on the top deck of a bus is quite a treat .

Make ice lollies. Get a long strip of paper and do hand or footprint painting.

Geocaching? DD1 (just turned 5) loves it.

Second to geocaching. My boys are 6 and 4 and very keen. We had to buy a GPS thingy though as my phone not that fancy, so there may be some initial money to spend.

Museum, swimming, council's often running cheap kids activities during the holidays - have a look at your council's website. Bike ride.

Ring round your local Surestart centres and see what they've got on. Not sure how old your dc are but they often do stuff for older dc too in the school holidays. DD has been on an outdoors trip this week putting up tents, making campfires, toasting marshmallows etc and she loved it. One week they are bringing animals in for the kids too.
We're pretty lucky to be close to a couple of good museums.
Other than that just the usual going for walks and craft stuff. Some cinemas do kids films for a pound as well.

Today we went to an arty party at the local museum (cost £2.50), there are lots of free or cheap events where we live. We also did some gardening, had a hunt in Oxfam for good/cheap books and went on a picnic.

Other things we often do are: library, baking, felt crafts, painting, activity books, cycling, board games, having a sort out of old toys, making a collage, planting, bbq, visit friends.

Join National Trust/English Heritage/Welsh Heritage etc (we did this for Tesco vouchers plus £5) then visit their sites in your vicinity for free. Take a picnic.

Make jelly and chop up fruit to put in it

Get a roll of cheap paper or lining paper; DC lies on it on floor and you draw round. Then paint or crayon clothes, hair, face etc. on the paper. Cut out and hang on the door.

Treasure hunt

Take toy cars ouside onto patio. Use chalk to draw roadways, use box for garage, make a ramp, etc.

Make chocolate crispy cakes

Ds1 is just getting interested in letters so we are making a scrapbook and doing one letter a day, drawing it and then taking photos, drawing or cutting out pictures of stuff that begins with that letter. We are only on b but he seems to like it so far!
That, parks and seeing lots of friends.