Cheap but grown up things to do with 6yo in summer hols

jellyhead

i started a thread about the free kid swim when an adult pays, mcdonalds offer. i don't know if that's any use to you. here they are strict about the adult to child ratio so you have to be 1 to 1 with the under 5's, and under 8's need an adult so uyou wouldn't be able to take both of yours at the same time iwth just you as adult. so taking him swimming might be good.

do you have an ottakers book shop? ours in town runs special events, oddly hardly anybody turns up for them! they are advertised inside the shop, so i suppose only the children who go in there find out about the events. we had a pirate party recently, sometimes it's just story telling and sometimes it's girly stuff.

inkie

What about 10 pinbowling - have you got a maize maze near to you?

culpepper

Cycling in the park?
My DS used to love this.
Make a kite and fly it.
Easy model aeroplanes(from balsa).
Play 'boys games' with him with his lego/soldiers/action man in the garden,make camps/swamps/jungles/assault courses for them.

Spendless

Some great ideas here folks:j . We do have a maize maze which is cheap and will be far more fun to do without wondering about 3yo running off

The swimming pool running the McDs promotion is 8 miles away but it gave me the idea of doing different swimming pools in our area or even in the next town/city. Looking on their websites some have wave pools which DS will love:D

An ottakers has opened here recently so I'll pop in to town and see if they are advertising anything.

Son cannot yet ride a 2wheeler bike. Father Christmas is buying him a new one;) but we have an old one that might be possible to do up or I'll look out at boot sale for one for him to learn on. There is a big car-park on our street which is mostly deserted in school hols. Very good for practising and again far better to practise with just me with him.

jellyhead

our nearest mcdonalds pool is a waterworld, it has big slides, waves, rapids etc. and my son loves it there. you do need somebody supervising really, so it's great to go just one to one. sounds fun

misty

What about a train journey. My son loves going on a train and has already asked when we are going. It doesn't have to be far - and I don't think you pay for 6yr old? Pack some sarnies and eat them in a different park.

jellyhead

i think you have to pay when they reach 4 but my sister doesn't pay for her 6 year old because he's very small and can pretend to be 4. train rides are very exciting, we all went on holiday once and there were around 20 of us. i had to take my boy and my disabled gran by train and my sister's boys were so jealous that she had to take them to a station so they could travel part of the journey with me lol! my son's 9 now and still gets excited about a train journey

Spendless

Is it different ages round the country Here it is 5 when you pay for trains and buses. We can catch the train from my station to the sea-side but I was pricing it up earlier and it was about £20 for a return. It would be same price if I went on day when all 3 of us are at home cos youngest is only 3. Don't know if I think it's worth it or not cos that £20 would go towards paying for more activities at home .

I was looking under admission charges at the places I'd thought of going and one place I now have to pay for DD cos she's 3, and one of the swimming pools will charge me more cos they do a 5s and under price and son is now 6. Perhaps my 2 need to become the youngest in their year and change their birthdays to late August:o :rotfl:

jellyhead

i meant 5 so a 4 year old is free but a 6 year old isn't.

i've got summer babies, it's handy for some things but alton towers (our favourite place lol!) has a new policy that you pay when the child is a metre tall! and they have shoes on in the theme park, so reach a metre earlier than the health visitors measure them at that height. for my tall baby roo that will be when he's only 2 years old!

the other way around, your 6 year old will be old enough to not need one to one supervision in a pool earlier than mine, here an 8 year old can go into the big pool without an adult and can even go swimming totally alone :eek: not ideal, but at least now he's 9 it means i can take the baby swimming and he doesn't need a second adult to watch him (i watch him, i just mean rules-wise).

Spendless

jellyhead wrote:

i've got summer babies, it's handy for some things but alton towers (our favourite place lol!) has a new policy that you pay when the child is a metre tall! and they have shoes on in the theme park, so reach a metre earlier than the health visitors measure them at that height. for my tall baby roo that will be when he's only 2 years old!

the other way around, your 6 year old will be old enough to not need one to one supervision in a pool earlier than mine, here an 8 year old can go into the big pool without an adult and can even go swimming totally alone .

I'll move their birthdays back when they get to 8:p :rotfl:

I suppose they do heights to stop people fibbing about their kids ages but it still ends up not fair on the tall tots who are too little to go on the rides anyway. Save your pennies jellyhead and take him to Disneyland, you don't pay admission price till they're 3 and he could go on all the big rides with you:D