Ideas for affordable summer activities with children aged 14, 10 and 2

[Dancemom1]

Help i need ideas of fun things to do in summer with my dc, they’re ages are boy 14
girl 10 and boy 2.5
so it’s really tricky. And il be doing it alone apart from when they see their dad on a Saturday.
i don’t have a massive budget either.
Last summer i took them all to turkey on my own which was great & broke up the full 6 weeks, but im not in a position to do the same this year.
my daughter is booked into some free holiday club sessions for the first 2 weeks.

Beach? Older ones can body board and the little one can do castles and paddle? We spend all day down the beach and only pay for parking.

Beach.
if inland then there’s some lakes/rivers that have little beachy type bits with shallow edges.

swimming venues here:
https://nowca.org/

picnic in local parks

get the 14 year old and 11 year old to
list out what they want to do and try to do some of it.

do you have national trust membership? More to do in some areas of he country than others - not much by me in east Anglia

Yea beach is on my list but the oldest will have to stay home as he hates it

other ideas:

cooking (get them to help with meals/plan their own (not the 2yr old obviously)
making biscuits
making ice lollies

do a list of attractions near you and see if any of them are on clubcard vouchers or similar.

bike rides? 2yr old goes on child seat (obviously if you have bikes)

invite friends over for the day - hopefully will lead to some return invites

are they in cubs/scouts/guides? If yes they often do camps, if no consider starting them.

the brownie and cub badge books are actually really good ideas for things to do that they might be interested in looking through.

https://anyflip.com/fvsye/tanr/basic

The 14 year old might want to do his own thing and he is old enough to be home alone if he doesn't want to join in with something.
Check your local museum for free activities for the younger two.
Sign them all up for the summer reading challenge at your nearest library - once a week a trip to the library for a new book (or books). There may be activities happening at the library too.
Swimming? Cheap deals at the cinema?

Is it that time of year already!!

A few things that have worked for us:

The local Library — great for all ages and completely free.

Cheap cinema mornings — some cinemas do cheap viewings over summer.

Museums - we're lucky in Leeds that we have the Royal Armouries which is completely free.

Play parks (maybe not the 14 year old lol) are a good cheap hour or so. I struggled with finding new play parks so I made a little site called Park Life Finder (https://park-life-finder.lovable.app) to help parents find new parks and playgrounds — it covers all types of accessibility info too, so it’s useful for parents with disabled children who want to know what to expect before they visit. It’s only just been created, so the parks are limited but just wondering if it would be useful. I know I would find it useful but not everyone is the same so looking for feedback.

Do the older two have access to cameras ( ie phones?). You can turn any walk into an opportunity for a photo challenge… finding faces in objects or each person has a colour and finds items of each colour. ChatGPT can give you photo prompts as well. We did this on holiday and were then able to make a photo book at the end of it all.

Scavenger hunts are also a good idea ….i used a book for ideas but there are loads of ideas online… they could be easy like feathers or trickier like travel tickets. Obviously you can edit depending on where you’re going. In the same vein is Geocaching which you do need an app but then it’s free to do. ( treasure hunt ).

I quite like a cemetery and finding the oldest gravestone …. Sorry I might even do a rubbing with paper and wax crayon if I found a cool engraving. ( geek alert!)

If you’ve got some friends to come over and you have a space you could do an assault course. Maybe a baby one and an older one. Adults v kids. We had a meet up recently
on a green for rounders and we all brought gazebos and food.

Do you have any interesting bus routes… jump on and take a picnic? If you normally drive then the bus can be interesting.

Thanks some good ideas

Do you have bikes? I got a second hand bike seat for £20 for my toddler, so me and older dc could go out for longer rides with toddler on the back of my bike. We are quite lucky though as near a forest with bike paths.