Clubs to do with 3 year old on WEEKENDS???

[MrsMohi]

My DD will be 3 beginning of next year. She currently is in nursery full time mon-fri as me and her dad both work full time.
I understand we are lucky to be able to send her to nursery and that she gets a lot of educational activities and enrichment there but I feel that my time with her on the weekend is wasted and tainted because I never know what to do with her.
I find most toddler groups are weekdays only and because of the vicious cycle of needing to pay for childcare to work and vice versa, we don't have a lot of money to be constantly going to soft play, farms, zoo's etc.

There is a possibility that she may go into public nursery next year but that's depending on several factors such as; if her school offers rising 3's, if we can get a child minder for additional care hours as there are no plans for either parent to go part time (due to financial needs) and if timings work out as there's a lot of traffic where we live (city centre) so trying to do drop off and get to work etc needs to be worth it.

Anyways, back to the point... currently on a Saturday morning we go to gymnastics 10-10:45. I have got her on the waiting list for swimming lessons as surprise surprise, most swimming lessons for kids her age are weekdays!
I take her to the local library which kills an hour but considering there's nothing on we exhaust that pretty quick. There's a hub a 5 min walk away from our local library that does free crafts on a Saturday also but it's one focus craft a week so that takes 45mins tops.
We currently don't do a whole lot on Sundays. Sometimes we might go for a walk around the local garden centre and it'll usually be Sundays that we go to soft play or a farm but I want to move away from doing that weekly as my bank account is crying, especially with xmas coming up!
I have looked into movies for juniors at our local cinema but the one that's currently on still looks to old for a 2 nearly 3 year old.

There is a play cafe nearby but I don't have any mum friends, maybe I'll make some there?

I don't even know what to type into google to bring up these events/clubs! Help please!

My DS does rugby and swimming. It is difficult though, I have found that with swimming and it’s why I won’t change Ds’s as the waiting lists are ridiculous.

Play with her at home? Visit friends or family. Rugby tots is often on weekends too.

@lookinthere I understand why most clubs are weekdays but it seems so unfair on parents that have to work all week and only have availability on weekends. Plus everything is more expensive on weekends! Never ending money drainer 😩

If your DP/DH is up for it, churches often have dads' groups on a Saturday, with much better snacks than they offer the mums!

English Heritage and National Trust might work, if you have a property near you. Ask for membership for Christmas from a relative maybe?

You really don't have to take her to organised things all the time - she will love being with you!
Get her to help with housework, laundry, gardening, cooking etc
You can do arts and crafts
Watch some music on You Tube and sing nursery rhymes and dance.
Go for walks, go on a bus ride.
Go to the park, get her a scooter, play football, collect sticks.
Jigsaws, games, Duplo/Lego, books.
There is soo much to do

You don't have to always "do" special things.
Just do "life" if - that makes sense. Go to the supermarket. Go to the library. Go swimming - not lessons but just family swim.
Stay at home - play together with her toys. Play board games. Do crafts at home. Cook together. Fold socks together.
So many children get very little time at home just being at home doing at home things and so many don't get taken to the supermarket etc anymore so they miss out on learning the "rules" of shopping.
Weekends shouldn't be another 2 days of scheduling - the other 5 are plenty.

Do you need to do structured activities? Does she have friends you can do things with? Or your friends who have kids? Bundle them all out together and go for walks in the woods? Trips to nice parks and things with a picnic and a babycino in the cafe?

When you’re at home - cooking/baking? Painting? Bike rides/scooting? Collecting leaves to make a collage?

I also recommend getting onto the mailing lists for local galleries and museums. I have the opposite problem where I find there is so much to do, I avoid any regular weekend classes because i don’t want to be tied to one thing.

If she’s in nursery all week she probably needs a break from so much structure.

Just pottering about at home with you is what she needs, especially as she barely sees you in the week.

@Pandasnacks I do play with her at home for the first couple hours of the day. She's an early riser so often by 8am we've played with everything, had breakfast and got ready for the day as been up 3 hours! I also play with her when we get home from the day around 4/5pm before we head into dinner & bedtime routine. I just need to fill between 8/9am - 4pm aha.
Unfortunately, our family live a 10 hour drive away and friends are few and far between. the one's I do have don't have kids and don't usually want to do kids activities and my dd doesn't exactly want to sit around whilst mummy has a catch up with her friends.
I will check out rugby tots!

I have two full days a week with just ds and one or two weekend days with him and my partner as I work every other second Saturday.

Sundays feel hardest actually, although we do things like playground, community allotment, toddler led walk in the park, beach.

Tomorrow his normal music class is off so we will probably read in the house, go to community allotment and try and have some down time as he seems really tired right now. Nursery is a lot of stimulation for him so I think some time with just his toys is quite good.

Just do normal things and have her tag along. Food shop. She comes along. Laundry, hoovering etc just normal stuff.

You really don't need to structure days to the nth degree.

She just needs to be near you and have some down time.

Just reading through all the replies and I've never really looked at it like that with her enjoying a break from structure!

I failed to mention she is a VERY early rise, 5am is our usual so the days feel very long and empty and I worry about her being bored. She does do the simple stuff, going to the shop, helping with household things, music, playing etc. I think more baking and home crafts could be good!

I think because I hardly see her through the week I feel a bit guilty if I'm not doing something 'special' with her.

My sister is a SAHM and always telling me about the clubs etc she does with her littles and I feel like I should be doing similar with my daughter.

If you've played with everything by 8am then perhaps you need to get some new ones. Board games and jigsaws are good to do as a family.
Have a look in The Works. They sell absolutely loads and they are reasonably priced.
My daughter loved a sort of junior version of UNO at that age and games like snap and pairs.

Swim with her, rather than lessons? So they are comfortable in the water before you start lessons.

Get out into nature? Get a hiking kid carrier and do big walks, or just tinker about in the woods finding muddy puddles etc.
you can visit the same places multiple times because the weather and season change.

baking at home?
or smoothie making

or duplo building etc

day trips to towns etc with museums and galleries? Often there are family activity sessions at weekends.

I think the key way to make a weekend enjoyable is deciding on activity and then being chilled enough to do it at their pace.
being rushed or impatient ruins the experience for all of you.

She will be getting all those "special" activities at nursery.
Your sister is a SAHM so takes her children to groups. Nursery is your child's "groups".

I think you're over-scheduling.

Get up, make breakfast, eat breakfast, play at home, go for a walk, go home, make lunch, eat lunch, play, pop to the shop, go home, play, make tea, eat tea, bath, stories bed...

A kid in nursery five days needs some time at home.

The reason there are fewer groups at weekends is because most people don't want that.

Save yourself from the tyranny of weekend clubs for now! Once they are at schoool you’ll inevitably be standing outside a gym/football field/dance hall every Saturday

Some kids do not potter.

My DS is nearly 4. Believe me, he does not potter. Never has, never will!

@lookinthere yep, I hear ya!

If she's away from home at nursery 5 days a week, I would be taking a slower pace on a weekend with her tbh

Sounds like the things you're doing are fine, the library, swimming all sounds nice

You could just take her food shopping, that in itself is an activity for a toddler especially if you go to a Lidl or Morrisons with those little trolleys, my daughter who is 3 loves those

Your sister is a SAHM. Your child is in nursery. Their lives are different. Both are fine.

It's good for kids to be bored occasionally. And no kids needs activities constantly, they want to be with their parents, baking, drawing, playing at the park etc, they need time to decompress at home.

You might find that gymnastics takes out most weekend classes. Ours all tend to be in that time slot… at the moment we do toddler football on Saturday morning, and tennis on Sunday morning. Usually we go straight from tennis to a National Trust type place, and then come back home and do baking before tea.

My son is nearly three and definitely needs to be out doing things every day, he doesn’t love home days, he’s got too much energy even if we use the garden lots. We did lots of playing kitchens and markets this morning; and then cleaning, and he was desperate to go out by 2pm so we went food shopping for the week, went to a cafe and then went to the park.

Usually on Saturday morning we do the library as they have Lego club and he likes that; then choose some books to take out for the week. Sometimes we’ll have plans to see friends but lots use the weekend as family time after working all week; so we often do things just as a three. There’s typically one mud school/outdoor playgroup a month on a Saturday here, but about three providers; so sometimes you could go to them all as they fall on different days.

For helping walks could you look at geocashing?

If my child was in nursery 5 days a week I would be wanting the weekend to just rest and potter about with them.

Nursery is tiring for little kids. Just play at home, go for a walk, go to the park, feed the ducks, go to the library, go to a cafe for a hot chocolate etc. She wants to just be with you and her dad.

I don't bother with any organised clubs for my 3 year old. He does 3 days a week at nursery and the rest of the week we just potter about doing these sorts of things. If you asked him his most favourite thing to do it would be to take his scooter and scoot to the local cafe for a hot chocolate and a biscuit, pick up a loaf of bread in the shop and then go feed the ducks. Pop into the library on the way home maybe. That's all.