Any Ideas on Cheap Things To Do With Older Children and Teenagers in the Holidays?

Spendless

Is your local council offering any activities? A leisure centre not that far from me is doing 10-3 once a week, with different activites for £1, for ages 8 - 13.

reecy_2

Great thread!

Farms are usually quite cheap, the one in my area is £1.50 per person and its a lovely way to spend the afternoon.
If you have an Empire cinema near you they show kids films saturdays and sundays at 11am for £1, probably seen them all before but it stops them saying 'I'm bored' for a couple of hours.

Oh and I'm also planning on making a big cardboard box city on no spend/rainy days which will probably wreck my living room forever but its cheap and I can send them to it if they drive me crazy. ;-)

Primrose

Buy a couple of cheap (same size) jigsaws from a charity shop.
Invite their friends in on a wet day. Divide into two teams and have a jigsaw competition. First team to complete wins a small prize.

Jollygiantswife

Glad wrote: »

pizza making
buy some bases, tomato puree and various things for toppings and let them/pals create and cook their own dinner

We actually did this for my DD's 12th birthday party - great cos i didn't have to do any of the cooking and the girls thought it was great to design, make and eat their own pizza!:T :T

My DS's was a sweet one made with strawberry puree, sweets and fruit - tasted surprisingly good :rotfl: :rotfl:

jadebarton

hi there, i have just found this thread which is really good but quite old. would be a great idea to keep it going with contributions from everyone and martin maybe a clearly labbed link/marker for this thread could be put up around the holiday periods.. with obviously the money saving angle in place :-)

As a single working parent to a 14 year old daughter im finding im at a loss to find things for her age group whilst i am at work and as my daughters not the most responsible at being left to her own devices it is essential that she is kept busy during these times.

I think the feb half term i can handle but the easter holidays 2010 (1st-16th april 2010) is a long one. Ive tried getting in touch with southwark and lambeth young people services in advance of the holidays last year but they were so disorganised that either info was wrong or they didnt publish list of activities to about a week before the holidays started which was no good to me and my trying to plan ahead.

anyhow at this point id like to ask if anyone knows of any regular/yearly teen activities happening during this time. if so would love to hear about them. particular in London would be great.

thanks

jade

nikkinugget

Hi,

Last year the kids and I made a funfair in the back garden. No scary rides mind you! But they made the side shows using jars from the recycling and ping pong balls, playing cards and darts etc. Then they invited Nan and Grandad round to have a go. They really enjoyed inventing the games and made some extra money by charging Nan and Grandad pennies to play. lol.

Spendless

I see a lot of threads that say 'I have a 12/13/14/15 year old and what do I do about school hols now they can't go to playschemes whilst I work'. I'd say use the time in the hols to teach your child how to make a cup of tea/toast, a simple meal/use public transport and so on.