Free Kids activities for school holidays?

[Ramona75]

Does anyone have any ideas on what Free activities that I can do with the kids over the Summer holidays?

I have a few days out planned but like most holidays, it hammers it down quite a lot, so what do I do with 3 under 9s in the house that will keep them entertained with either NEW craft & activities ideas that they have not done before, that will not require £50 trip to Wilkos for materials

I was thinking about creating a fun holiday calendar (with my limited knowledge of excel) for them and filling it with as many activities as possible to give them things to look forward too!

All ideas welcome! If I get enough ideas, I could make a kids’ calendar with indoor ideas for each day of the holidays and let you all have it too. Obviously you would not do all of them but at least there would be options available.

Help! 😊

Just remembered we used to have the odd Carpet picnic on rainy days. They sometime like the novelty of putting a blanket down and all eating on the floor. Teddies can be invited too

Science experiments can be good fun
. Lots of ideas here but there are lots of other sites https://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/

Under 9's often still like to be read to, so perhaps choose a good story which would be too hard for them and include a chapter a day at some point.

Many youngsters always travel by car. A short bus ride can be an adventure. (I know this one is not free)

Indoor scavenger hunts. Bring me; the oddest thing you could wear as a hat, 5 hairs tied together with a 6th, The oldest thing you can find, 3 left feet ( cooperation needed here!) A teddy wearing a sock for a hat, etc

Grow cress as an egghead in eggshells or initials on damp kitchen towel.

Create a miniature garden in a box or foil tray.

Design your ideal bedroon using junk mail pictures or old magazines.

Just a note about homemade pizza, If you cook them on a sheet of greaseproof paper you can write the owners name beside each and avoid arguments about ownership.

Have a great summer

for personalised quizzes use Kahoot. Save recycling items for junk modeling, turn it into a competition.
I put together a massive wall of cardboard which my kids spent days drawing etc.
once filled I turned it over and using recycling stuff, the kids built a marble run using tape and holes/string, take a while to get ot all to work ene to end.
make bird feeders using pots or recycling bottles

My kids loved to plan a kind of themed restaurant day, they'd make placemats and menus from paper and help or make the dinner. The fave was a burger restaurant. They still talk about it.

Lunch at a park at least once a week - we've taken cooked sausages in a hot thermos to have hot dogs on the go.

Find some woods with a stream, especially if it's one that's not well known.

Free museums.

Rock painting and making a rock snake for the garden or leaving them for others to find.

Washing the car - kids love that.

Water fight day.

Sending postcards from anywhere you go, especially if they're involved in choosing the card, buying the stamp, posting it too.

Make a water wall from guttering and an old pallet for the garden. Fun to make and hours of fun.

Make a marble run from loo rolls and a cardboard box or two.

Science experiments - mentos in coke, the one that looks like a lava lamp with oil and an alka seltzer and coloured water - all on Pinterest and more!

Collect sea glass, drift wood and shells if you go to the beach and use it to craft with, we've made picture frames before.

Make ice lollies, ice cream - so easy with cream, condensed milk and some cookies.

Make ice cream in a ziplock bag

Make cardboard bracelets with double sided tape attached and stick on things you find on a walk, leaves daisies etc. we've done it with crowns.

Pyjama day

Library and babycino day

Make cakes for grandma or neighbour

Grow something - my son is older than yours now but still absolutely loves to grow vegetables

Little ones love 'painting! Everything in the garden with water - paintbrushes and water is all that's needed

Teddy bears picnic

Campfire with marshmallows/s'mores/baked bananas/campfire cones

Hope these help x

Wow, thanks for all the ideas!

Will have a look at Kahoot, never seen that before. I found a great youtube channel here that has loads of kids' video quizzes and Disney ones too! yey! This should fill a few days in.

Maybe you could try some these ideas.

Great! I'll add all these to my list, which is getting quite big now, yey! At this rate i'll have an activity for every day of the holidays 😍

Amazing. I’m place marking. Does anyone else feel their parenting mojo for coming up with ideas ran out over lockdown? Anyway, visiting a different park. It doesn’t have to be good just different.

My dcs are older but when younger we did some of the following:
signed up for the summer reading challenge with the local library. They often ran events to tie in with the theme.

Movie day, complete with snacks & pop corn.

baking, rocky road or cookies are both easy. Can also freeze half the cookie dough to enjoy another day.

bucket of water and some paint brushes and let them draw on the wall or patio.

Oh, if your kids are of the mind you could do a frozen t-shirt challenge.

So you get an old t-shirt, soak it in water, roll it up tight and fold it etc. Then freeze it overnight.

The game is to be the first one, or by X time one of the kids has to be wearing the shirt.

Small prize if you feel the need.

Painting with water? Does that only work when there is muck on the walls and patio? Clean graffiti 🤗

Holiday diaries are great. We enjoyed looking over the 2020 edition just the other day.

Learn to touch type on the BBC site

Ukuleles

read!

I've been trying to touch type for 30 years, never managed it!

A frozen t-shirt? This sounds like it could be fun. Are there points awarded for how many seconds, said frozen t-shirt can be worn? :-)

Cooking is definately on the list but i'm sieving all the flour!

Do whatever you want!

It's just a bit of fun :)

Have your own nature photography competition

They could give you a makeover. They can make face masks out of porridge oats and water and put it on you with cucumber for your eyes. Then a foot spa with bubble bath and water in a basin. They could do your nails. Mine found doing this hilarious.

Also obstacle courses round the house, sofa cushions on the floor etc with stations where they do star jumps, forward rolls, backwards rolls, commando crawl under dining table etc.

Mine used to spend AGES seeing who could do "the lightest leap" across the living room. Literally it was just who could land the quietest having done a run up and leaping across the living room!

Making up plays together with props. Mine did a play about pirates and at various points, they would squirt my husband and I "in the audience" with water from a very small water pistol.

That's a good idea, we live near some woods and I have an old iPhone they could err, 'share'.

All good bar the makeup, they currently do blindfold make up on each other. The person doing the makeup is blindfolded 😂

Just dance on YouTube
Go on a walk, to a garden centre or similar and try to find something beginning with a, then b etc
Make mocktails
Host your own Olympics with your dc wearing the colours of different countries (from what they already have, e.g. Red t-shirt for japan, green for italy, blue for England). My then 11 year old got really into this and learnt a few Japanese phrases for the interviews after the races!
Make bubbles with a plastic bottle and a sock
Put written "tasks" in envelopes like in task master and time them. We did things like build a house out of Lego or find 3 blue things.

Junior parkrun is free and aimed at 4-14 year olds.

Thanks for the ideas. Make bubbles with a bottle and sock? How is the sock used?