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

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We go a lot of free places like the parks or to see friends and family. If we do have day trips I always take a picnic as my little one thinks it's exciting and it saves a fortune! I'm yet to find a way to avoid ice cream buying though I did see a good tip on here about taking lollipops which I might try. I look for offers on the train and also sites like groupon. I'm quite lucky she is small still as it means going places like theme parks is pointless at the moment

Any free park events also church events y o u can join in and enjoy. Offers at cinema and shopping centres look in local newspapers or ask around. Easy to enjoy the holidays y s just go for it.

I used to struggle in the holidays to ensure our dog gets long enough walks, trickier when the children are in tow. I bought two clipboards and made a list of things for the children to spot on the walk - postbox, pink car, double decker bus, rose bush, etc. The children love it and so does our dog. ☺

A lot of baking, fills the time, the freezer and the tummies that have been emptied by lots of walking across the local area looking for mischief interesting things to do. We are very lucky that both sets of GPs have our DC for a week's holiday in the summer, allowing us to get on with jobs like decorating.

A lot of it is about preparation. I've claimed free day trips to theme parks from newspapers, selling tickets I couldn't use on eBay to fund extra tickets from there, claimed a free family and friends railcard, saved small change through the year to fund arcades, better than 2 for 1 vouchers on cereal boxes, used nectar points for cheap cinema trips. All these have meant we have one day trip and one cinema trip for next to nothing every week during the holidays.

We make a list of must do activities so the kids can get excited about them in advance and I somehow manage to make the best of the summer rather than lazing around and leaving things to the last minute...

One of the things my boys like doing most are scavenger hunts at home and around the garden, around our local area or going out somewhere. I make a list for each of them of things to find and there is a small prize for the winner, The are lots and lots of downloadable lists online full of ideas

I always look out for free activities and offers. We usually take our own picnic and this avoids long queues and paying over the odds for often poor quality food. We research before we go to a particular place so that we have a very full day.

I cut up old magazines, newspapers etc and make little activity books - that way even on rainy days at home they have something to keep them ticking over

Get out early in the morning just as it gets light so that they can experience nature waking up. Let them experience a sunrise.

A packet of sweets or chocolate in my bag often perks them up later in the day and saves paying out for yet more expensive treats.

Lots of places do kids' trails these days which are always a hit with my dc.

I always try to get them to do a scrap book or diary but they never go 100% as planned. This year I have rebranded them as 'Smash Books'.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!!

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

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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 :-)

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.