You don't always have to spend a fortune to have fun in the school holidays (Inexpensive Home Made Toys and Activity Ideas)

Member Name: buckhysen

Product:	Inexpensive Home Made Toys and Activity Ideas
Date:	24/02/09 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun days out, cheap and cheerful, kids and adults are happier

Disadvantages: You might need to travel

If like me you get to the Summer holidays or Easter break and wonder how you are going to keep the kids entertained for what seems like months, not weeks ;o) and without spending a small fortune then hopefully these few ideas will help... and hopefully you will post some of your own on the comments page.

As a single Dad with two girls, 12 and 10, my girls are getting to the age now where simply giving them a few toys to play with or an empty box isn't going to keep them entertained for long.(Always amazes me how toddlers find an empty box far more interesting than a toy) :o)

Also I don't like to just sit them in front of a TV or games system for hours on end, I like to do things with them or at least find things which mean they are not sat down in front of a TV screen all day.
But working from home and not wanting to spend a small fortune on activities has meant that over the past three years I've had to come up with other ideas to keep them entertained in the holidays.

Of course you can go for a meal at Pizza Hut, McDonald's, to the cinema, theme parks, etc and these don't cost huge amounts of money, but they do if you have to do them every day for 2 or 6 weeks.

So what do you do? A lot of people I know really struggle to find things to do with their kids during holidays, simply because they don't have the money to do things every day. You can stay at home but this won't keep children entertained for long.

So here are a few things we do to keep the school holiday's entertaining without spending a fortune.

Unlimited bowling -
My girls love bowling but at around £30 for the three of us, for 2 games it isn't exactly cost effective to do this very often, especially as 2 games can be played in less than an hour. Then they want food, drinks and to play on the games machines, etc. So before you know it you could spend £50+ in little more than a couple of hours.

We found a way around this was to get in touch with friends and arrange a day to go bowling during the day. Our Bowling centre whacks up the prices during school holidays which is a bit cheeky but we can still get an unlimited bowling pass which will last from 12pm until 6pm for around £20 for the three of us.
Sounds simple to go with friends but I'm surprised how many parents, especially single parents don't think of this.
The reasoning is simple.... the more people you can get on a lane the longer the games take, the more people there are to chat and the children don't get bored as quickly.... My girls start to get bored after 2 or 3 games of bowling.
We always try and get either 6 or at least 10 of us to go, including kids, as this way we have at least 5 on each lane, and the games drag out longer which means nobody gets bored and has just the right length of time between goes without getting bored.
We eat before we leave and when we get home so even with buying a few drinks and snacks we can have most of the day on not much more than £20.

Picnics -
My girls love picnics, especially when we meet up with friends. Despite living right in the centre of a big town we are lucky to have a park and gardens within 10 minutes walk of our house, and whether we go by ourselves or meet different friends, it is always nice to get out and about, catch up with friends and fill a day without spending hardly any money.
I never tell the girls what food or drink I have packed, so it's always a nice surprise, and I always take enough so we don't have to spend money at the cafe or shops.

Sleepovers -
Not a surprising idea I know but nevertheless it's something that is cheap, cheerful and children love.
Our house is not very big so we only have one or two friends over at a time but they always have a good time and it helps fill up the holidays on days/nights when we are not away or have nothing planned.

Games nights -
When possible we invite as many friends over as possible (Adults and kids) and have a games night, which ranges from board games to PS2 games like singstar and Buzz. This is always popular as the kids have loads of fun and actually the adults have even more fun. Nobody gets bored and apart from drinks and a few snacks you don't spend a penny.

Days out -
Days out can be expensive if you go to theme parks, arcades, etc, etc but quite often we tend to simply go to the beach, a lake, etc and take all food, drink and everything we need with us. Apart from the cost of the petrol to get there and back we rarely spend anything else in shops or arcades, etc. And above all everyone has a good day out.
Not to mention that these days out really tire the kids out which means they sleep better at night, don't drive you quite so mad by arguing and as they feel they are doing more they don't moan so much that they are bored on days when you are stuck at home when it's raining.

The big day out -
There's not really a name for this and I've not heard of many others that do this to such a big scale. Admittedly I only arranged one of these last Summer but it was so popular I'll certainly try and arrange another this Easter break.
Basically you choose a date, I check Google weather for what looks like the best date. Pick a park, gardens, or anywhere else nearby that has huge grounds to run around.
Email, text, ring all your friends and family who you know are running out of ideas to entertain the kids, tell them all to meet up at the place you've chosen at around 10am, bring whatever food they want, drinks and something to play with.
Then quite simply you spend the day there. There's always too much food, too much drink and loads to play with and nobody has spent much more than about £10 (Food, drink & petrol).
When I organised one of these last summer I contacted about 30 friends and family and with kids, about 40 turned up. It was a fantastic day which lasted until about 8pm before people started going home.
If you send out a message to everyone and tell them this is the date, I'm not chasing around for you to come, and especially if you leave it later in the holiday when parents are running out of ideas for things to do, and running out of money then it's really popular.

Football/Netball days -
When I was about 13 years old I had an idea to organise a 5 a side football tournament, but obviously it was difficult while school was on. So a week before the Summer holidays I checked with my Mum what day we had nothing planned during the first couple of weeks, and then gave out notes to just about every boy I came across at school in the last week saying that there would be a free 5 a side football tournament for anyone who wanted to come and play on 'this' date.
I wrote out a fixture list/tournament plan and how best to organise it and expected about 20 or 30 kids to turn up (As we regularly played football at the local park with 20-22 of us), to my amazement about 80 kids turned up from all 5 years.
So after about an hour of organising we managed to get together around 16 5 a side teams which consisted of a boy from each year, where we could... and we had a fantastic day of football.
Even now I get friends reminding me of that day and what a great time we all had.... and it was all organised without spending a single penny and with no help from any parent.

I only add this because a friend of mine recently told me her son of 14 was so bored and no longer wanted to hang out with her and her young daughter all the time, so I suggested he did this with his mates.
He organised a day of football last summer holiday and had 50 kids turn up, then did another one in October and had 60 turn up, and I hear he is still doing them.

It's a great way to get older children organising and planning something and then having a great day. The whole process will keep them entertained for days, if not weeks, and there's no reason why girls can't do the same, or organise a netball/hockey day.

I find, chatting to friends that if you go on holiday during the school holidays sometimes you just don't have the money/budget to spend out a lot more on activities for kids, but there are a lot of things you can do, and not always in the home that don't cost the Earth, but will keep both children and the adults entertained. Meaning neither of you drive the other mad with stress and/or boredom :o).

Summary: Days out for next to nothing are possible