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School Holiday is Fun! Get Some Summer Vacation Ideas
Summer vacations may be joy for pupils, but quite a tricky time for parents. Often childcare costs are unaffordable for working mums, or for those who stay-at-home or work from home, screaming kids and chaos might get a bit too much. Relax. While I cannot offer affordable childcare (it’s down to the government, isn’t it), here are some lovely (and eco-friendly) ideas to have fun with your kids.
Summer time in the UK is wonderful this year, so make the most of it! Activities in the park will not only help you fight the stress, but it’s a great way to stay close to nature and spend quality time with your kids.
Enjoy a walk in the park… with a kid on a scooter
You can choose the scooter type depending on your child’s age – they are various and usually start from age of three. I find it a great way to spend time outside and keep my little princess active. Besides, this will help ME stay fit without the need to pay for a gym membership.
The very first day we received the red, limited edition, mini micro scooter, we ended up in the park with my daughter: me – chasing her and screaming “STOP”, and she – the happiest child in the park, probably thinking “I’m getting faster than mum – this must be a good sign I’m growing”. After a couple of days only she’s riding her scooter perfectly well and enjoying her time in the park to bits No more frustrating morning trips to the nursery, I recon, when she wants to jump off the buggy and run in the opposite direction. It’s good exercise for me, and great fun for her every time we go outside.
The scooter itself is a must-have: an award winning, Swiss designed product. It’s light weight, portable (so we’re definitely taking it with us on our family vacation abroad), and it’s also great design! There are 3 new limited-edition mini micro scooters in red, green and yellow. It gives toddlers independence whilst helping to develop their critical balance and co-ordination skills. It comes apart in two pieces and will fit easily on top of a buggy or in the corner of a cafe. Comfy!
Mini Micros are low to the ground, which makes them very easy for young children to feel comfortable on. Basically, they do not need to have one foot considerably higher than the other, as with some other scooters. Because they are low to the ground, this also aids balance. Additionally, the foot plate is made of light-weight plastic, which is actually an excellent material as it avoids the danger of your child scraping or banging his ankles on a hard piece of metal - which, believe me, can happen a lot with the metal models.
The Mini Micro Scooter does not steer in the usual way i.e. by turning the handlebars left or right. Basically, it turns when your child leans to one side, thus putting his bodyweight in the direction that he wants to turn. Whilst this may seem strange at first (to you, perhaps, more than your child) this is actually a very good method of changing direction for a young child. With my own son, it was not long at all before he was effortlessly gliding around corners.
It's also very easy for my little one to balance on it as it's got 2 wheels at the front as opposed to the back. I can recommend it as a perfect starter scooter!
So what else you could do while you’re enjoying your day in the park? Pick up flowers and leaves. Make beautiful summer flowers bouquets to decorate your child’s room! Or… get crafty later in the afternoon (especially if weather is drizzling – we can’t expect the summer is always bright in the UK, right) and make wonderful…
Pressed Flowers
All you need to do is to:
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Have your child pick an assortment of small flowers, herbs and leafs. Make sure she picks them when they’re free of rain or dew.
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Place flowers between sheets of newspaper, making sure the flowers don’t touch each other.
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Cover the paper with a heavy book.
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Leave the flowers for a week or so until they’re completely dried.
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Now pressed flowers are ready to use in collages, greeting cards, or for decoration of photo frames, gift wraps or flower pots. Enjoy!
Having a garden or a park nearby? – Host a magic (and eco-friendly) themed picnic. All children love it! It could be a space-ship themed, a teddy bear, or a girly
Fairy Picnic
Combine eating outdoors with yummy food and furry friends, and everyone will be guaranteed to have a great time.
Picnics can be held anywhere, in your back garden, at the local park, in a playground. If the weather looks dodgy, your garden is probably the best place. That way, if the summer sun turns to gloom you can easily move inside and have the picnic on a blanket in the living room.
To make the afternoon even more special, invite some of your kid’s friends along. You may want to spend an afternoon making fairy invitations from recycled paper, or to be even more eco-friendly, send them electronic ones via email.
Decorate your magic fairy-tale picnic. Instead of balloons try paper lanterns, which provide colourful focal points and soft light as well. Make a felt banner with lots of fairies, and give everyone cloth napkins, which you will recycle afterwards.
Don’t just run out and buy disposable party plates and cutlery, instead look for biodegradable tableware or stronger plastic pieces that can be washed up. And underneath all of this, how about a paper tablecloth, suitable for recycling, or an old sheet that can be washed – you could even encourage the children to decorate the paper or cloth with their own designs.
The treats? Make your own snacks. It’s a great way to prevent kids going bonkers after ingesting lots of artificial colours and flavourings, not to mention the sugar overdose. Make sure you have enough suitable fairy-themed picnic food for the youngsters, including pieces of organic fresh fruits. Stick to organic food which can stay out of the fridge for longer. Get a cooling bag with you so you can keep some of the food there. Indulge the little fairies with some home-made oaty cookies or home-made croissants with honey or low-sugar blueberry jam. There are books on making children’s party food in most libraries if you lack ideas, and here are my suggestions: cupcakes, grated cheese sandwiches, fruit, homemade dips with vegetable sticks, small squares of homemade pizza, and cheese straws. Plenty of water or freshly-squeezed juice is important for those little picnic lovers to keep them hydrated during the warm summer day.
Picnic Activities? If you decide to host your picnic at a playground, then eating the food and running around should be enough entertainment. But when attention starts to lag, especially if the guests are very small, these activities are sure to keep the kids entertained for as long as possible:
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Plan a Fairy Treasure Hunt, where children hunt for clues to find a special treasure.
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Print fairy colouring pages off your computer in advance, then bring out the crayons.
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Eat the Fairy food! And why don’t you provide homemade cupcakes for them to decorate with icing and sprinkles, chocolate chips etc
Have a magic Fairy time!
Kids love water, so swimming pools (when the beach is not close by) are ideal for the summer holiday. For a special day you may wish to do a family trip to a
Aqua Park
There are some very good ones in the UK. For instance, Water World is the UK's number one Tropical Indoor Aqua Park. The Facility is built around a wave pool with slides, rides, flumes and features available. There is plenty to do for all ages, weak and strong swimmers. It’s opened all year round and there are great features such as:
- 4 Lane Family Multi Slide, where your kids can have fun by racing to see who is the quickest to the finish. The good thing is that small children can be accompanied by an adult, so parents can have fun, too.
- Twister. This is a white knuckle ride combing 6 seconds of thrills, spills, and screams that take riders through a breath-taking flume of twists, turns and steep chutes.
- Aqua Splash Jungle house is great for the younger visitors; there are a further three children-sized rides to enjoy. Also in the Kiddies' Play area there is the children's Ship-Wreck Slide, the Mushroom which spurts out water creating a constant mini waterfall ...ideal for Water Babies taking their first steps into water.
There is also a nice café-bar for parents to relax, and also an outdoor pool, which during the summer holidays is being transformed in to a Caribbean beach with real sand.
We still need to be prepared for not-so-summery weather. So how about some indoor activities and events both kids and parents would enjoy? My suggestions are located at the
There are lost of daily activities (like Art Smarts) as well as FREE special events during school holidays. You may wish to join the
- Summer Festival on Sunday 1 August, 11.30-16.30
Forget Notting Hill, Bethnal Green is where it's at in August as the Museum's annual summer festival returns for another year! Watch the Museum burst into colour as the gardens buzz with performers, rickshaw rides and traditional stalls selling everything from cakes to plant pots. Plus, there's live music from Tragic Roundabout and delicious food.
- Musical Mix on Friday 13 August, 11.00-16.00
Experience the musical cultures of South America and South Africa with musicians from the Grand Union Orchestra. Join in family music workshops (11.00 and 14.00), enjoy short performances (12.00 and 15.00) and make a musical instrument to take home at our arts and crafts table (14.00-16.00).
- Classical India on Friday 20 August, 11.00-16.00
A day of interactive family workshops and performances featuring Indian Kathak dancer Indrani Datta. Enjoy magical stories told using dance, poetry and music, join in family workshops (11.00 and 14.00), enjoy short performances (12.30 and 15.30) and come and make a peacock headdress to take home at our arts and crafts table (14.00-16.00).
There are also Funky Fridays at the Museum of Childhood – every week throughout the summer holidays!
Have fun!
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