NOW CLOSED: Share your top ideas and tips for keeping the summer holidays fun filled on the cheap with Mu cheese - you could win an annual Merlin pass or a months supply of cheese

[AnnMumsnet]

We've been asked by Mu (the funky new Cheddar brand) to find out your top ideas/tips for keeping the summer holidays fun filled without breaking the bank. This could include arts and crafts, games, things to do at home, places to visit etc - we would love to know your favourite family activity.

Mu say "Mu believes in fuelling more family fun everyday; be this through our range of delicious, natural cheddars or through giving families the tools to make every day as enjoyable as it can be. The summer holidays are a perfect excuse to have fun with the family but sometimes it?s difficult to think of ideas to fill the whole holidays. Mu would like to create a free downloadable booklet which includes a list of activities that Mums can use for a bit of inspiration when needed"

This is where you come in! Please share your top tips on this thread.

The best ideas will feature in the Mu "Make everyday a Mu Fun day" free booklet which will be free to download from the Mu website and Facebook site from the 23rd of July

All entries will be put into a prize draw to win a family Merlin annual pass (worth over £400) which offers a family of four free entry into 28 top attractions including Alton Towers, Chessington and Sea Life Centre plus many more.

PLUS all entries chosen to feature in the booklet will win a months supply of Mu Cheddar. If your tip is used MN will be in touch for your address details.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

We make an activity spinner out of a round cardboard pizza base or cheese box, divide it into twelve sections and write in different activities (a mixture of outdoor, indoor, crafty, quiet and active) with an arrow pushed in the middle to spin.

My kids love choosing the activities to put on the sections and take it in turns to spin the spinner.

We add and take away activities at the start of every week.

Go foraging in your area. There are always fruit trees that overhang pavements, or street planted fruit trees that can be raided for free fruit. Often fruit tree owners are happy for you and the DCs to pick fruit from their trees in exchange for a share of the fruit (it stops them getting too many windfallen fruits, and with a ladder even high fruit can be picked.
Then cook the fruit into pies, cakes, crumbles, jams or chutneys (and give spares to friendly fruit tree owners to sweeten them up for next year).

We go to the local beach, mine all now teenagers but they change as they grow they still abolutely love to go crabbing towards the end of the day you only need a stick some sting a piece of meat and a bucket! the screams of excitement and enjoyment of who caught the most or the biggest and which crab nearly escaped is still going strong i even have ago sometimes too! its amazing how many kids have never beeen before and my kids fiends are always asking me to take them too!

kitty your kids have Fiends ?
Great autocorrect

We are lucky enough to live on a street where all the children can play out on the front together, so we don't have to go far to have lots of fun. The thing that they are all into at the minute is 'making potions' We go for a walk to the park, or through the glade, collecting various leaves, petals, pine cones, twigs, etc, then we come back to the houses, get bowls/buckets/jars and begin the potion making! Sometimes it is perfume, sometimes it is a magic potion, and sometimes it is just mud pies for the fun of it, but it is always lots and lots of fun!

Other activities include mini Olympic events including scooter races, hopping races, walking backwards races, 'gymnastics' - this is where they do forward rolls on the grass! - football, the list is endless! Then we finish it off with a picnic, weather permitting, of course!

Throw a Florentine and the Pig picnic party! :)

Here

Make bunting, beetroot muffins and healthy lemonade and invite people round for a picnic in the garden (or living room if it still raining).

Make daisy chains, collect daisies all morning from around where you live (long walk needing a DVD/duvet afternoon after daisy making)

We are lucky enough to live in a square around a big green, the local children have decided to throw a "green party" they drew invitations and posted them through each door. Every family will provide 1 plate of food and the children are all going with a bottle/flask of water/juice. I said they could play some music out the living room window from the pc. They have arranged it all and have invited every child in the street. :)

Picnic adventures. We hardly ever eat indoors during the school holidays, we have a special supermarket trip in which all the children pick one thing each, and we all make the picnic together.

I normally make us pirates, so we make hats/eye patches etc, and a treasure map. I then customise it to our local park, and the picnic is the treasure.

Then we get to the park and I run off and hide the picnic. Lots of fun and there's a yummy lunch at the end of it!

gat some cheap chunky chalks and tell them to graffiti the paito -hours of fun and it washes off in the rain (eventually!)

Give your DC a small patch of garden, a grow-bag or a large plant-pot so that they can dig, plant and water to their hearts' content without ruining your vegetable patch.

Buy a butterfly farm and order caterpillars so your DC can watch them grow, form chrysallises and emerge as butterflies. This is great for toddlers and younger children who love The Very Hungry Caterpillar and there are loads of related activities - crafts, a butterfly-spotting walk with an I-Spy book, even flying kites!

On a hot day fill a paddling pool and add rubber ducks, buckets and a bubble machine. Kids are guaranteed to have fun.

Use your local library (if you still have one!).

Our library has a summer reading scheme where the children get rewards each week for taking out and reading books. It is a great motivator for them (and me!).

Secondly you can hire story CDs for free which are great for keeping children entertained on a long journey.

Thirdly, the library has a really useful noticeboard listing activities around the area, many free ones run by wildlife trusts etc.

Also, I am an avid token collector so gather up any vouchers for kids go free and bogof etc to allow us to go to places we usually couldn't afford.

One of our favourite activities is to take the scooters to the park, have a good scoot and get an ice cream. Good exercise, cheap and fun.

Outdoor ideas - Stargazing, spotting shapes/animals/objects in the clouds, orienteering, picnics, shell collecting at the beach, planting veggies, salad, herbs, sunflowers etc, foraging for blackberries, apples, sloes etc

Indoor ideas - flower pressing and then make cards/bookmarks, make puzzles from old wrapping paper (laminated is easier), handmade paper using the blender, fine mesh and and old photo frame then decorate with dried flowers/ glitter etc, cooking with the veggies, salad, herbs, fruit that has been grown/foraged, make paper beads and turn them into jewellery/keychains etc (long thin triangles from old magazines wound tightly round a toothpick and glued)

Whatever we do, I try and get the DCs to keep a journal/scrapbook. This means they can look back at all the things we did and it helps to keep the literacy and numeracy skills in check over the holidays. Numeracy is kept in check by budgeting their pocketmoney earned from chores.

We try to line up a lot of small activities over the summer for the children to do.

Gardening (and hopefully picking and eating some of it!!), going to pick your own fruit farms locally (as well as some friends that have fruit trees with plenty to spare), making/baking with the fruit. Growing some flowers in some pots we are going to make from tins we can paint and decorate.

Paddling pool, washing car, washing dog (probably quite a lot!), going for walks, taking the dog for walks, picnics, trips to local library and parks, walking in the rain, jumping in puddles, making mudpies (2yo is especially keen to do this ), visiting friends and family.

Making cut/paste pictures, drawing/painting/colouring, scrapbooking with pictures, trying new meals using "in season" vegetables. Chalking on pavement, riding scooters. Learning to write letters to send to grandma that lives abroad. Listening to different types of music(on radio), and dancing/singing to it. Reading books together (from library).

Making forts inside with blankets and outside with sheets or blankets clipped to garden chairs. Bubbles with washing up liquid. Making costumes to dress up and play out of old clothes (superheroes with a blanket cape and toilet roll armbands is 2yo's current favourite). Water fights in garden.

I'm hoping there will be some local community activities as well, so will check online for them.

Chalks, a wall, your kids. draw round the outline of each child against the wall (or they can lie on the patio) and let them do a self portrait in the outline. ours love doing this and once it rains you have a blank canvas.

My tip is to always to get in a walk to the park (15mins each way) as soon as the dishwasher is on after breakfast, it won't be too hot then and if it's rainy we just walk the perimeter of the park instead of going into the play area, then if it clears up later we can get out some more and if not we can play wii dance safe in the knowledge we'v had plenty of fresh air already

We have just fostered a gorgeous labrador from Labrador Lifeline. They cover food and of course any vet fees, so there is no cost. But it is encouraging my lazy teenager to walk, care and look after a dog. The dog is so sweet and loving...it's a perfect way to introduce children to keeping animals..trying out and then with an option to keep at the end, or to keep on fostering. It's lovely!

We just love sports. And the beach - in any weather!! Just being outdoors in the woods or hills is so good for kids (and it tires them out!). Our favourite place is Glencoe in the Scottish highlands. Absolutely heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The drive up there always gets the kids excited (and you know the scenery is good when it's enough for kids to notice!)

My plan this summer is to "make jobs fun". We will be redecorating at least one bedroom, cleaning out the garden shed, and painting it, and doing some healthy meal plans and budgetting and cooking. My theory is that instead of calling them chores, I'll be bigging them up as "projects".
Not sure if it will actually work with an eleven year old boy but the stuff has to be done, so either I do it while he sulks, or we do it together with a smile on his face. (or a resigned hang-dog expression on mine)

I have discovered the fun of high tech treasure hunting in geocaching (www.geocaching.com) using my iphone. The kids love it. It is outdoors and it is free once you download the app. Ideally I go out the night before to check the geocache is where it is supposed to be and to ensure there is something in it. If not I can improvise something to ensure they are not disappointed. I always bring my two and at least one other school friend/neightbour's child etc. involving an extra child is in fact my best trick for any activity hoildays or not. They keep each other entertained and take the focus of sibling rivalry and because I would hate them to go home and say she did nothing with us or she shouted at us all the time I find it makes me creative and surprisingly calm

I ditch the car and take the bus. The dc (5 and 7) love the bus and we always try and find a new park to visit. We have a look on neighbouring borough websites (most have a list of their outdoor spaces and parks) and decide together which one to visit.

Some have not met our expectations, but the fun of choosing a park, getting snacks ready to take, drawing out a map/bus routes/changes actually getting the bus (top deck, at the front if possible!) and exploring somewhere new is fun itself.

When staying at home the best fun we have is with an ordinary hosepipe sprinkler - one of the 'fan' types.

DC jump over it, run around it, play blindfolded to see how close they can get without getting wet when the spray comes over their way, get their brollies out and try and stay dry...
DS was so upset when we told him of the hosepipe ban - his first thought was "what about our game?"

This year we are getting together with the other kids, and parents, to make a zombie movie! So making props, writing scripts, filming, editing, adding a score and finally the opening night!

I don't direct any of their outdoor play, 7 yrold twins and 10 yr old.
Things they do at the moment:
Our area is flooded today(last week too) so they have been sent home from school, road is cordoned off and they have been trying to swim/make waves/make biggest splash/photo calls at flood sign for various neighbours/riding scooters through it.

Collect snails and slugs and make 'worlds' for them in ice cream tubs/on trays.

Have races (against themselves with stopwatch if on own)-can be running or on scooters, obstacles and so on.

Get across the garden without touching the ground-using their giant domino set and anything else they can find.

Digging in mud, making mud pools with watering can, swimming action men in mud.

watering the garden.

Making patterns on the ground/side of garage with watering cans, water pistols and so on.

Endless picnics/gang meetings in tents/shed/blankets over washing line/garden chairs.

Recording ladybirds and number of spots in their special note pad.

We do have a lot of neighbouring kids in and out of garden/house too so we'll have tentative plans and then they'll be off down the road with them and I'll start getting on with jobs again!

So on days that we're not away/going swimming/meeting friends/at the park
that is what they will be doing as well as 'helping' me decorate/clear out garage/clear out entire house really!

Keep all the boxes that heading for the recycling, and use them to build towers / mazes / sculptures / whatever.

Choose a favourite short story and then make a film of it

If it's raining, go out in wellies and puddle jump and get very wet. Then come home, get dried off, light a fire and have hot chocolate and stories in front of it (NB you need a fireplace for this one ...)