Mid summer holidays..kids getting bored and cranky with each other

Question

any good ideas for cheap but fun filled days out ???? thanks x

Answer 1

a town scavenger hunt. think of things that can be found around your town and load up in the car to find them. a little pre-organization to put the clues in their hiding spots is all this would take. think of something special to boast as a prize to get everyone excited about it. have fun!

Answer 2

are there any clubs put on for children in your area for a nominal fee?

you could go on various 'safari' trips with different themes

one theme could be to go butterfly spotting (go armed with pen and paper to draw/describe the butterflies and a book that has diagrams of them so they are easy to identify)

another could be bird spotting (a pair of binoculars and a bird book could be handy for those)

another could be to collect leaves of as many different trees as you can - again a book to identify the different types of trees.  also if you have a blank A3 or A4 sized blank booklet you can draw around those leave and fill in the various veins.

collect wild flowers, bring them home and either press them for a project for a later date or make a college of them

buy up an old roll of wallpaper (an oddment) for a variety of art projects such as - cut a piece slightly bigger than each child.  Then lay the child down on it and draw around the child (on the obverse side).  then get the child to fingerpaint their own self portrait using that image with some poster paint.  each child will produce their own.  use an empty eggbox for the paintsand make sure that they are in clothes that you ont mind them getting dirty.  Then when they are dry these can be cut out and mounted on their bedroom doors and be a talking point when their friends come round.

also with paper - and wax crayons - go to various surfaces locally and take some rubbings - pavements, barks of trees, driveways etc - then collate these to see if you can develop a picture from these

beg buy or 'borrow' some white cotton Tshirts and get some cold dye (plus die fixer and salt) and get some string and get dying - kids love the results and they dont ahve to be experts to get some really good results from it.  if it doesnt work properly the first time then get a second colour and repeat - that will give you a variagated effect.

makng a necklace from an elder bush.  cut some of the branches of an appropriate diameter with a pair of pliers.  then cut some one inch slices (best that YOU do that not the kids unless you want some spare fingers in the mix).  then get some twigs and get the kids to poke out the soft middles.  the outter bark can be skinned or partally skinned to create patterns.  then thread them onto a piece of string to create their own necklace.

Answer 3

Swimming, The Park,Playground,Round friends houses, Art and Craft activities,The library, visit family,Junk modelling,etc etc

Answer 4

Pack up picnic lunches and explore the parks in your area.  Something about the great outdoors can really make a PB and J sandwich taste gourmet!  Also, tonight and tomorrow night are the annual perseid meteor showers.  After 1:30 am, you can go outside, and if it's clear, see up to 100 shooting stars a minute.  Camp out in your backyard, start up a fire in the grill, and roast some marshmallows and make smores.  The kids will love staying up in the middle of the night, and sleep in the next day.  You could even have a contest to see who spots them first.

Answer 5

How about giving them old magazines and photographs of themselves and get them to make a scrapbook about themselves and the things they like.

Swimming

The library often run sessions for kids where they can go on the computer, draw pictures, do quizzes and so on.

Take a picnic and feed the ducks on the river.

Bike riding.

Make a kite and fly it.

Research child friendly science experiments on the internet. My Mum did this for my sisters daughter and they spent ages making cool things happen just using things like flour and food colouring.