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

We make scrapbooks of with 'treasure' from places we've been to - ie a leaf from the park, a feather from the ducks, a pretty leaf, and a dead beetle.
We always take a picnic in a coolbag with pleanty of drinks and small sandwiches and fromage frais x Occasionally I will take a barbecue and pop some burgers in my coolbag x

Like many, money is tight for us so we always try to plan ahead for the summer holidays. One thing I do is save up the coupons/vouchers from shopping so that some of the little extras can be paid for. For example, I have nearly £40 of Boots points - if we spend time in town shopping for back to school clothing and bits and pieces, I can treat the children to lunch, without it actually costing me.

We make the most of free and cheap activities on offer - if the weather is good we have several nice parks nearby and the coast is only an hour away for a special day out. Bad weather is a little more tricky but again, the local library, museums and churches often have things going on for the children, even if it only occupies a couple of hours. I do try to get them out of the house every day - some days it may just be to walk the dogs, but at least they have had fresh air and exercise.

Finally, I try to incorporate homework into what we are doing. One year my DD had to do a holiday diary and so we kept the leaflets/tickets from everywhere we had been and when she got home, she would stick them into a scrap book and write a little bit about the day. Car journeys or walks can be turned into an opportunity to practice times tables or maths problems and using a simple map to mark off different places visited gives DC an idea of where they have travelled.

Preparation in advance is my ammunition. Means speedy set off in the morning and your always ready for hungry tummies.

Now the weather is nice lots of trips to the parks, We usually all cycle, And if it does rain puddle jumping is always good fun. We hardly every spent money just have fun in the great outdoors, My children love it x

My three all love to cook so we do a regular 'come dine with me' through the holidays and each takes their turn to take over and host their own evening of food and games for the rest of us. It's great fun.

Make the most of free activities that are hosted in your local area. We have been to a couple of fairs and carnivals already, they don't need to cost a lot.

I always plan ahead, making sure I know where we are going, what is available there and what I need to take. I take plenty of drinks and snacks but always like to have a bit of cash for a nice coffee/ice-cream.

We always extended the day out by making a photo and souvenir album in the days afterwards. We would write in it too and as well as a fun thing to do, it is great to have to look back on years later.

My husband and I are both teachers so we have lots of time off to enjoy with our son in the summer. We do lots of walking, picnics and trips to museums. Technology is banned on family days out...for Mum and Dad too!

Geocaching if I can spell it later at night is fun. Cheap and cheerful but with variety. Also encourages them to be out and about if decent weather.

We are going to make a diary of all the things my son does, partly so he keeps up a bit of writing and as a nice thing to look back on. It gets us hunting for things to stick in it too.

Also- mixing up expensive days out with cheap ones/trips to the park/ visits to see friends and things like art and craft activities at home!

Going out during the Summer Hols is fun, expensive - so we try to have as much fun with minimum spend.. & then save up our spends for a family cinema trip or meal out.
Fun, low-cost ideas for the summer in our house include;
Building dens in the garden - drag out any old sheets & duvet covers, blankets, pegs & garden canes - if there's enough of you, or if LOs have their friends over - team up & compete for who can build the best den! When complete - get cosy & enjoy a cheap picnic packed lunch. If it's sunny & you don't mind the textiles getting wet - have a water fight, & use the dens as shelter!
As mentioned above - treasure hunts are a great way of getting the family out & about & encouraging a bit of healthy competitive spirit! :)

We are lucky enough to live somewhere that has loads of kids activities - museums, art galleries, theatre, there's even an arts trail on this month. These cover a huge variety of subjects, including science, history, creative arts etc. We get organised for the day with packed lunch, drinks, snacks etc ( plus both sunscreen and waterproofs!) and set off walking, rarely arriving home before tea.

We do the same for day trips to the park, often meeting up with school friends (we have a class parents whatsapp group to coordinate get together). We also try to make it to the coast and beach at least once in the holidays (doesn't feel like summer if we don't ).

We are big bargain hunters so will make the most of o2 moment deals for coffee/lunch when we're out. For big days out we've used 2 for 1 vouchers from cereal packets/chocolates or nectar/club card points. We also check moneysavingexpert.com for discounts and, if possible, plan trips away to fit in with the best prices at the budget hotels.

We will go to the cinema at least once to the discounted "movies for juniors" sessions that are less than £2 each - slightly older (3-4 month) releases, but worth the saving. and we take our own snacks and drinks

We're taking part in the big reading challenge through our local library - we pick a book and either read it together or listen to the audiobook when travelling in the car. We then talk about the story, maybe watch the film of the story (if there is one) and talk about what we've learned. We're currently working our way through David Walliams' books which are hilarious for all ages.

We try to travel by public transport where possible, as the journey can be half the fun (sometimes!) - you need to pack plenty of distractions though if it's a long journey and "look there's a cow!" Isn't going to hold their attention for long...

We are lucky to live near a number of national trust places - since having kids I've been impressed by the ways they've tried to engage them, such as themed days and activities, treasure hunts around the house and grounds. We'll be going back to the Roald Dahl activities at Tatton Park before it finishes in October, that's for sure. Well worth the annual membership imo.

Like many of the others on here we like to keep things cheap and cheerful and try and limit our costs to travel and one meal out. We always check in advance for vouchers and discount deals - Pizza Express always have good one.

We often go by train so we have an 'I-spy' on a train journey book which is great to complete whilst waiting at the station as well as a source of entertainment on the way there and back.

We have an 'i-spy' book for every ocassion we can so for a trip to London or out in the country it is a good excuse to get kids looking for things and learning about them and it doesn't cost anything except the £2.50 ish for the book!

We always look for events and activities that are free and luckily being so close to London there are lots about - it is very rare that we pay to do anything there.

We use our local park every day, from after lunch until teatime.

I like to get going as early as possible in the mornings as thats when my children are the most energetic and more of a handful. I find if we go out really early and stay out until mid afternoon they will then be shattered by the time we get home and happy to sit in front of a movie until dinner time. I always make sure I pack a picnic and plenty of snacks to keep costs down and we try to do lots of free activities wherever possible. We only do a paid activity once a month or so. Mine arent in school yet but when they are they will have a choice of one big thing each they would like to do over the summer and we will do that, the rest of the activities will be more low key (cheap and/or free).

Sierra how old would you start geocaching?

We have done things like the Gromet Trail in Bristol and the street art train in Weston. This year they want to look for Pokemon...

Involve older children in the planning as we all know most of the excitement in things is in the build up i.e holidays, family events

Dd1 fills a scrapbook with pictures, postcards, ferry tickets etc and loves reading them and remembering what she has done. We buy a postcard each holiday/day out and stick it on a humungous map of the UK in our kitchen. This has taught them loads about uk geography. We take picnics a lot. X

Picnics and treasure hunts

we take our caravan to a site with minimal spend facilities....on their bikes and go

When the dds were younger we used to do scrapbooks (they often needed them for first week back at school anyway) - so theatre tickets, metro tickets, flowers, shells, postcards etc.

I think planning and making the picnic is part of the fun of the day. We also sometimes drive and sometimes go on the metro.

We always buy a bookmark from wherever we visit - DH's family always did this, and my family did too - so it's a family tradition that the dds don't seem to be as enthusiastic about as we are

Try and get up and out early. Always take water bottles and snacks even if you are eating out.

I leave the car at home and go on the bus, my girls love looking around and interacting with the other passengers. It makes the whole trip more exciting. I also try to take a lot of photos so we can talk about it after and show other friends and family what we did.

we take picnics to keep the cost down and will do one big day trip a week, the rest of the time we find free things to do such as event at the local library and travelling to different parks.