Favourite free things to do as a family

[lilacsky89]

Really trying to save money this year and avoid spending so much money at the weekends. My children are 6 and 3. What are your favourite free activities as a family (or very cheap) in need of some new ideas!

Thanks ☺️

The beach, playpark or a country walk where they can take their bikes if the weather is half decent. Take a picnic.

Visit friends/family or have them visit you. My kids love visitors

About 4 times a year there are very cheap tickets for the national trust. You either buy a newspaper of a lottery ticket and it gets you in.
With children the ages of yours I used to go out to all the parks in the local area. One has a water splash area, another has a free animal park, another has very tame squirrels who take monkey nuts from your hand. Worth getting to know what is out there.
Then there are museums in our area who are donation only.
Mine also loved the local library, it has a few toys like a kitchen, giant connect 4. They did storytime and a free music session weekly as well as the obvious draw of new books each week.

Oh and obviously it is cheaper if you take your own food, you can pack things you might not have everyday like strawberries or chocolate to make it a bit special.

We have a really big marine aquatic sales shop near us. They have huge tanks full of weird and wonderful fish. We often go to look and the staff are so educated on all the animals there, that they'll often spend half an hour with you explaining that particular one's behaviour/feeding patterns/all sorts of trivia.

It's honestly like a day out at the zoo. They genuinely don't mind, they are such enthusiasts that they enjoy it as much as we do. The owners will even let the children (all, not just ours) feed bugs to some of the reptiles.

Family swim sessions
Walk around woodland collecting interesting leaves and items to create a scrap book
Planting seeds like cress in pots for kitchen windowsill
Baking cupcakes and decorating (this can get expensive I know) then delivering to friends/grandparents
Rearranging the bedroom, creating reading corners etc and sorting bookshelves (my dc loved this).

Woodland walk
Bike ride
National trust adventures
Swimming at the local sports centre
Games & picnic in the park with friends
Museums, art galleries
Play dates

Free tourist attractions - museums, art galleries, historic houses etc.

Big parks - we make an all day trip to visit ones further afield that we've never been to before. We do a bit of research and check if they have splash areas etc so we'll bring swimsuits.

Children's Centres - we visit ones in neighbouring boroughs and some of them are open at weekends. My eldest is technically too old but we just fudge her dob on the registration.

Cheap visits to the zoo (for UC recipients).

Walks along the Thames.

Outdoor sculpture walks or trails.

City farms.

Council leisure centre soft plays (not free but 70% cheaper with a concessionary card).

Tourist areas like Trafalgar Sq and Covent Garden - often entertainment and interesting stalls.

Events like Changing the Guard.

Beach trips.

Toy shops, if you can resist buying the big shops like Hamleys and Selfridges have lots on demo.

Local festivals - I check the council websites and community FB for all the nearby boroughs and go to free festivals, they often have food, entertainers and fairground rides.

In the summer holidays all the councils have some events and activities to keep kids occupied, including some free play schemes for those on a low income. I check out all the ones nearby as some areas have much better events and it's easy enough to travel to them.