It’s that time of year again when the summer holidays arrive and if the prospect of the long summer period is rather daunting, particularly with the cost of day trips and activities, it can be difficult to keep the kids entertained without breaking the bank. If you’re in need of fresh ideas that will entertain your children and keep them busy, we have a selection of ideas from Dr Katrin Bain that will ensure your children stay active and have fun with little or no cost.
Parenting on Female First
Dr Katrin Bain is a tantrum expert and the author of the PocketRescue parenting series. She studied pedagogy, psychology and sociology, got a PhD in Applied Social Studies from the University of Warwick. Katrin has two children that have taught her all about real life motherhood and strongly influenced the personal and flexible approach to parenting that she now shares with other parents in workshops and talks. She has written for JUNO, Junior and Life Learning Magazine.
Let them play!
A lot of children I know have lots of toys and little time to play with them. Allow enough time for free play at home during the holidays. I know that I might be stating the obvious here but with all the festivals, workshops and events going on during the summer it’s easy to forget to book “play at home time.”
One of the nice things about the summer holidays is that there is a lot more time to play with friends. Having friends round also takes the pressure of you to play with and/or entertain the children. Make sure to invite friends that your child enjoys playing with and let them play freely rather than planning activities. Maybe you can take turns in hosting play dates so that you and the other parent gets a few hours to relax or play with a sibling. I believe that strong friendships are a real gift and should be given the time and space to grow.
You can encourage independent play by structuring the environment rather than the time. So instead of allocating a time for a certain activity arrange the toys, arts and crafts materials so that your children can easily reach them. Put all dangerous items and things you do not want them to use out of reach.
In most situations it will be enough to let your children take the lead and let their imagination run wild but in case your child needs to get used to unstructured play or you feel safer with a few ideas up your sleeves I have added a possible activities and variations for even pretty common activities.
Katrin’s Top 13 Tips of Low or No-cost Summer Activities
Build a den
There are so many ways to build a den and the age of your children and where you live will determine the most appropriate way, so take these ideas as guidance only.
Cover a table with blankets to build an indoor den or use big cushions and mattresses. Our favourite indoor den is built from two foldable mattresses that are covered with blankets and made cosy with cushions. It takes literally two minutes to build, the children can help and there are variations depending on what they play. In the picture below the doors are at the back as a secret escape for baddies hiding. On another day we turned it so the doors where on the front and it was used by the children to play family.
Build an outdoor den by placing a big blanket over a washing line and holding it down on each end with stones
Find a tree with low branches and build a den inside. You could use leaves or moss to make seats
Picnics
My children love picnics. They could turn every meal into a picnic. Again picnics can be outdoors or indoors. In the park, the garden, at the beach, in the woods, maybe under the branches of a tree.
Put a picnic blanket down on the living room floor and have an indoor picnic or let your children take food into their rooms for a quiet picnic during midday rest time.
The nice thing about picnic food is that it is easy to involve children of all ages in the preparations, whether it is cutting vegetables or making pancakes.
Or why not combine a picnic with “pick your own” fruit picking, den building or a treasure hunt to find the food basket.
Watch a sunrise
In summer this means getting up early (unless you are lucky enough to be able to sleep outside and see it from your sleeping bag) but it's well worth it. The time immediately before the sun goes up is the coldest so make sure you dress warm enough and maybe take blankets or sleeping bags to cuddle into. The first time a saw a sunrise I was surprised how long it took. Unless your children have a long attention span or you feel fit enough to play and entertain them, aim to be out when the sun is already a bit up. It is beautiful to see the day start and it offers lots of options of quality family time. Whether you just sit quietly, talk about how the sun rises and where it will go down or make up sun stories it will be a memorable morning.
Street Art
A pack of big coloured chalk and a drive or pavement is all that it needed to keep the children busy. Here are some of the things that they might come up with:
- Draw a line from your house to a friend's house down the road
- Draw their favourite characters
- They could lie down and you could draw around their body and they could then use the outline to add details, clothes etc.
- Draw a big snake and ladders and play it together
- Draw hop scotch
- Write letters and/or numbers and play spelling or counting games
Please note that drawing on a public pavement in England is legally a grey area and there have been media reports of police men giving children fixed penalties for it. This seems to be rare and we certainly never had a problem but to be on the safe side make sure you know of the legal situation where you live.
Touch and Feel
Summer is a great time to use all senses.
Make feel boxes: Fill old shoe boxes with different materials like stone, fabric, rice, pasta, grass, toys etc. Put the lid back on and make a small hole in the side big enough for your child's hand to go in. Let them feel and guess what they are feeling.
Make a path out of different surfaces like sand, carpet, grass, pebbles, soil and let your child go over it bare feet and blindfolded. Again let them describe what they feel and what surface they think they are walking on. If you have more than one child they could guide each other. If your child does not like to be blindfolded, let them go over it seeing. They will still get a lot out of it.
Stick patches of different types of fabric, paper, cardboard or plastic onto a big board of card board. Make sure that they each feel differently for example silk and jeans fabric. Add another patch of each item on the board into a (fabric) bag. Let the children reach into the bag; feel one of the patches and find the matching one on the board.
Sand Treasure
Hide a selection of stones, glass pearls, shells and beads in a bowl, bucket or sand table/pit if you have one. Let our children go on a treasure hunt to find what's in the sand. Give them a colander and maybe even gloves and a spate to go and find treasure. You might also want to tell a pirate or gold digger story to set the scene for this back yard adventure. If you have younger children let them tell you about the different properties of the items they found (colour, shape, how the surface feels...). This will help them with language development and prepare them for future science classes.
Find a tree
The following exercise might sound like tree hugging but is more a sensory and trust experience. In a park or the woods blindfold your child and guide him to a tree. Let him feel the bark and go back to where you started. Take the blindfold off and let your child find the tree. For children it is fun to solve the puzzle and find the right tree. At the same time it trains the senses and builds trust in being guided. Switch roles and let your child guide you. You can also pair up children and let them take turns. Initially the child that sees might not be careful in guiding that one that is blindfolded, which is a good opportunity to talk about what is important when guiding somebody else, how to communicate and how to make sure that the other person is feeling OK during the exercise.
Discover Nature
Your local park, woods, river or beach are all suitable to explore nature:
- How many different animals can you find?
- How many different trees can you see?
- Send them out to find 3 sticks, 5 stones, 8 shells or whatever is appropriate to the location
- Blow dandelions
- Make a daisy chain
- Find items to take home for a summer display
Bubbles
A timeless classic. Bubbles are so popular there is even an International Day Blowing Bubbles Day on the 6th of May.
- Blow small and large bubbles.
- Pop them,
- Chase them,
- Let them land on you without popping them
If you want a moment of peace and quiet, I find it is usually enough to give each child a bottle of bubbles and they entertain themselves.
Recycling Art
This is great whether you are at home or away. For a week collect all boxes, nets and other clean food packaging that would normally go into the recycling straight away and then give your children scissors, tape, glue and paint and see what they make of it. If you have large boxes you could build a cardboard city. A lot of local shops get regular deliveries and are often happy to save the packaging for you.
Especially when you are away recycling cardboard and cord can replace a lot of toys that you might not have had the space to take with. How about cutting a whole set of tools to play with? Or police equipment? A doctor's set. The options are endless.
One holiday we raided the paper recycling bins in our holiday park to make a full tool set complete with cones to block of the area that my son was pretend hammering and painting. He loved this set so much that we had to take it home and he continued playing with it. It is amazing how many hours of play a bit of cardboard can create when you turn it into something that is meaningful to your child.
Make greeting cards
Christmas might be the last thing on your mind but now is a good time to make homemade cards for birthdays, Christmas and other celebrations. Making cards is a great project and without the stress of Christmas preparations I find my children enjoy making them much more. It also means I have one thing less to worry about in December when there is suddenly a mad rush to get everything done. If you give homemade presents again now might be a good time to make them. It is a win all-round: the children are busy during the summer, you have less stress before Christmas and your loved ones get personal cards and presents.
Cuddle up in bed and read stories
A lot of libraries have summer reading challenges where you get a certificate or small price once you have read a certain amount of books. So why not stock up on books and spend the next rainy day in pyjamas reading together.
Messy play
Summer is great for messy play even if you do not have a big garden. A builder’s tray is enough to set up a variety of activities including:
- Play dough: The builder’s tray is big enough for two small children to sit in. Ideal for play dough without mess. They can roll, mould and build with the play dough and all the little pieces stay in the tray.
- Paint: Line the tray with packing paper and add colours. Can be used to paint with brushes or fingers. A good way to make foot prints (use a sponge to lightly colour feet). Alternatively make some marble art. Scatter a few spots of paint around the tray and add a few marbles. Help your children to let the marbles run by lifting the tray and moving it gently.
- Shaving foam: Distribute shaving foam on the tray. If you are up for lot of mess your children can play with it as is. Otherwise cover with cling film and let them experience it through it. If your child has sensitive skin use the cling film to protect his/her hands from direct contact.
- Water: This is one for outside. Take a few bath toys, watering cans and the tray outside on a sunny day. Fill the watering cans with water (or let your children do it if you have an accessible outside tap) and let your children go wild.
- Sand: Great if you do not have the space for a full sized sand pit. Add sand to the tray and let the children dig and play. You can add some building site vehicles or hide some items in the sand for your children to find.
For more information and articles visit: www.katrinbain.co.uk