Holiday Activities for Kids at Home

As the school holidays loom we look at things you can do at home to keep everyone entertained and stop that familiar "I'm bored" sound!

The summer holidays are a lovely time for children to relax and be more creative, away from the academic challenges at school.  They can really become embroiled in their imaginations and enjoy playing and having fun.  

Making Dens

Making dens is a fun idea that can be done anywhere, indoors our outdoors.  All that is required is a base and some old sheets they you don't mind the kids making a mess off! 

Let them try and construct the den on their own.  You might need to help make it more sturdy when they are done!  

The fun doesn't end there.  Once finished they can play in their den and it should keep them entertained for hours!  When we tried this one in the garden the kids made a library and spend hours in the den making their own books for the library and drawing pictures.  It's also a good place to play things like schools.

A Leaf Hunt

Give the kids a container each and send them off on a leaf hunt in the garden.  Make sure you're happy for them to go and explore on their own and it's a safe area.  Tell them to find as many different types of leaves as they can.

When they are finished you could do some crafts by sticking the leaves onto some paper and then you could do some research to identify each one.   Even better you could paint the leaves and make a picture to keep.

Get Cooking

You don't have to be a Master Chef to get cooking with the little ones.  You can make some really simple things like Cornflake Cakes where the kids can do most of it themselves. 

If you want to be more adventurous get a recipe book and let the children have a go at following the recipe.  Make sure you have all the ingredients before you start!  We love these flapjacks or you could try chocolate chip cookies!

Hold a Car Wash

This one has some obvious benefits in that your car gets nice and clean!  Park up on the drive and get some buckets of soapy water and sponges.  The kids will have brilliant fun getting wet and soapy and the car will be sparking once finished!  You might need to give it a rinse off yourself though!

Craft Ideas

Children of all ages love arts and crafts.  You can draw, paint, cut out, colour in and much more.  Craft packs are reasonably priced and you can get so many hours of entertainment from them. 

For some awesome idea check out this book called 365 Things to Do with Paper and Cardboard.  We also love this book called Let's Get Crafty with Paper & Glue: 25 creative and fun projects for kids. 

You can also use lots of old cartons and items from around your house to make things such as making colourful bird boxes with old milk and juice cartons and tissue paper.  Stencil art is another fab creative activity that is easy and fun to do at home.

Lego

Lego is always a good one for letting kids use their imaginations and get building.  Whether it's following instructions to build something specific or making it up as they go along there are so many options for Lego fans!  Kids can enjoy playing o their own or it's also a fantastic activity to spend quality time together and build something as a team.

Hair Chalk

We love the idea of this hair chalk which can turn your child's hair from boring and sensible to fun and crazy in minutes.  Kids love it and it's a brilliant thing to do in the holidays.  We've sourced some of the best hair chalk kits here. 

It can be dull having to wear school uniform and stick to rules about hair and jewellery at school so make the most of the long summer holidays and let your child dress how they want and have fun hair if they want to!

However you choose to spend your school holiday make the most of it and with some of these holiday activities to try out at home you can have a head start in keeping everyone entertained this summer!