Share your ways to make more of family days out during the summer hols with PizzaExpress - £300 Love2Shop voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

With the long school holidays stretching out ahead of us, the thought of filling every day with entertainment is enough to exhaust any parent. So how to take a few simple activities and extend the fun across the full six weeks?

This summer, PizzaExpress is teaming up with Ice Age: Collision Course to give families great days out. Here’s what PizzaExpress has to say: “Come and visit our family-friendly restaurants across the UK and try our delicious new summer menu. We even have lots of gluten-free dishes and kids can try our Piccolo menu which features mini plates of grown-up favourites – for even the fussiest eaters.

While you wait for your food, your children can enjoy completing our Ice Age: Collision Course activity pack and even enter a competition to win a 5-day holiday to Hollywood! Simply visit a restaurant and draw a picture of your favourite Ice Age character with a pizza to be in with a chance of winning the holiday to Hollywood, Ice Age toys, goody bags, Pizza Making Parties and much more...”

PizzaExpress would love to hear your tips for making family fun last a bit longer - without constantly dishing out cash.

Could you encourage your children to do some creative writing based on a film they've watched - or put on their own performance after a trip to the cinema? Perhaps you come up with crafty activities which tie in with places you've visited or things the kids have seen? Or even encourage your DCs to cook by recreating recipes from a meal out? If you've arranged a day trip, do you extend the adventure by using different forms of transport to get to your destination? Maybe you make the preparation for a day out- like making a picnic and packing bags for the day - all part of the fun?

Please share your tips for making the most of days out and finding ways to make holiday fun last all summer long. Comment below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one Mumsnetter will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs Apply

[EmmaMumsnet]

Congratulations to HopefulHamster for winning the £300 voucher

[bex552]

We never plan what time we ll be home so we don't have to rush and we always collect things along the way to put in our scrap book of memories

[TiggersAngel7774]

Picnic are great fun for kids and promise of ice cream if they good and dont moan.
The pokemon app is big help for this as my son will happily run around like a fool , until hes almost dropping

[Bechoole]

I love to take a packed lunch, lovely sitting down in the open air eating all the goodies outside

[jamielmdjs]

Setting post-activity challenges is always a great way to ensure they get more out of family activities.

• Drawing/painting a picture of their favourite animal from the trip to the zoo was this week's

[dirtypop]

let every member of the family decide what your all going to do on their chosen day

[cheryl100]

I always search for vouchers and organise my days out accordingly!

[StandUnderMyUmbrella]

We ditch the car and take the train. That means we are more active, more exercise and longer travelling time, which when you aren't in a rush makes the day last longer and feel more adventurous.
Plus not driving gives me the chance to actually look out of the window for once!! xx

[Bsummers]

We try and make plans as a family and do something we'll all enjoy, we have regular picnics, and have brunch picnics so we're out enjoying the weather daily, even if we have nothing special planned it's next to go to the park. We try and make all our activities educational. So lately we've been to places that we've visited before but this time we've read up on the history, so everyone has taken something new from the trip.

We take activity books, and paint sets with us wherever we go so no one is bored, even if it's another trip to the park again!

And we try and go out of the city and enjoy the countryside, I live in Scotland and the country is beauty this time of the year. There are a lot of natural reserves around where I live so theres always something new to see!

[samosh22]

Playing with the sand in the beach

[whitbyranger]

Make sure you cover all eventuaities. The British weather is so changeable, so if you plan a day in the fresher, always have a Plan B. Try to keep a large variety of food at home to put together lunch boxes. Cheese sandwiches can get very boring if they are eaten every day.

[sofieellis]

We always had a family membership to either English Heritage or The National Trust, when the kids were younger. That way, we could have lots of days out for the price of petrol and a picnic. The kids thought it was great, getting to see lots of different places, castles etc.

We were also lucky, that there were lots of children living on the same street as us, so they used to get together in each others' gardens and simply make their own fun. We always knew where they were and that they were safe.

[sarahsnail]

We try to do something outdoors one day and spread our days out so that the children never get bored in the house.
I've found some great deals on voucher sites where we have combined days out at farms, parks and theme parks with a meal out, on the way home whilst being in the area.......... all for a fraction of the full price. Certainly make long eventful days out :-)

[lucyrobinson]

I have to only take the kids to the beach. They get some stones. Then when we get home they wash them and they draw on them. Turning them into little characters. That's a morning that doesn't cost us any money.

[angiehoggett]

make a plan of things everyone would like to do and research into them to create an itinerary

[milliemoon]

My son loves magazines and when he has finished doing the activities and using the stickers in them he likes to make different collages with the pictures and he seems to find the cutting and sticking really relaxing

[Maiyakat]

We like to do crafts linked to the places we visit, for example making animal masks after a visit to the zoo, or collecting flowers, sticks or shells to make a picture.

[emmamcmahon]

I have a long list of places to go/things to do ready to be referred to. This saves any time wasted thinking 'what shall we do' and leaves more time for fun!

[HopefulHamster]

We make an awful lot of dens from cardboard boxes, and then colour them in.

[LunaLoveg00d]

We sat the kids down at the beginning of the holiday and asked them each to write down 5 things they'd like to do over the break, within reason! They came up with stuff like strawberry picking, trip to the cinema, pizza making, visit to a castle and so on. When we're at a loose end, we all choose something off the list to do.

Has worked well so far!!

[sweir1]

You don't have to over spend. Kids love nature, water and generally just running about. And they love picnics too

[RoastieToastieReastie]

We keep tickets etc and stick them in a book and DD writes her favourite part of the day and draws a picture next to it. If we have a book in a similar topic then we will look at that. If DD has had an amazing day out she will often come home and say lets play castles/Victorians/insert theme of day trip where it's a make believe game reinacting bits of the day. If we get something like a cuddly toy or colouring book from the gift shop then that will be played with when we get home too.

[BrandNewAndImproved]

We have a national trust for the first time this year so we're really making the most of it. If we're travelling somewhere quite a while away I plan the route to be able to make a pit stop either at a nt place or a local beauty spot with a cafe.

I also took my dc to Bath today and used the park and ride to make it more interesting. Google maps really helps in a city you're not familiar with as all the different places come up on the map.

My dc like the activity packs you get in restaurants. They especially like it when they're pictures get put on the wall by staff there.

[loubymain]

Geocashing. They love finding new toys by trading their old ones

[thesockgap]

We tend to plan one "proper" day out a week - which can be anything from a trip to the seaside to a cinema visit. We fill in the rest of the time by arranging play days with their friends, picnics in the park if the weather is nice - we make a day of that by taking lots of games along - and I usually allow one day a week of chill time where they can just watch films or play on the Xbox. This way there is always something to look forward to every week; we're not cramming everything into a short space of time or spending loads of money in one go.