surviving the summer holidays!!!

kaymumof3

im trying to pre-plan some of the summer holidays with the children, age 11 and 7 i work mon/weds/thurs and fri 9-2 so have every afternoon and evening plus weekend home

childcare eats into our budget quite a bit so trying to think of ..

things to do at home or locally for free
quick and cheap meals,
keeping on top of the housework
how to keep the children reading and writing maybe doing some maths games

i have brought 2 plastic tubs for the fridge today to put snacks in each day so they dont eat all snacks within 2 days of the shop and then complian the rest of the week lol

i will be buying icepoles and this is what their freinds can have otherwise we end up feeding half the street

i will get a book each for them to keep a journal of the holiday

i have a week off in august and we are goin to put the tent in the garden, fingers crossed for good weather! i have brought some tye-dye kits from homebargins £2.99 and we will dye all the old school t.shirts and i exspect we will have kids freinds for sleepovers!

so thats my start how do u guys cope with the summer holidays any tips or advise welcome

pinknfluffy28

I love my kids, but I dread the summer holidays! I work in a school, so I am at home with them 24/7 during the holidays, and it can be very very hard work.

My girls are 14 & 7, the eldest one often has a friend round but I limit it to a few hours a day, otherwise my house becomes a drop in centre! I try to arrange at least one play date a week for the youngest too.

Heres a few of our favourite no-spend, or super cheap, holiday activities:

Library visit. We go once a week, and the girls choose a "topic" book each, and this gives us ideas for craft projects, and a bit of home-learning (I like to keep their brains busy!), for example, dd2 picked up a space book last year, we did star gazing, made a space ship from a fizzy drinks bottle, designed aliens, and wrote a story about visiting the moon.

Scrapbooks. They get a scrap book each at the start of the holiday, we keep all the topic stuff in them, plus any tickets, photos etc from days out. They both love looking at the previous years scrapbook in the run up to the holidays.

Gardening. I'm a keen gardener, and I get the kids involved, it gets us out in the fresh air, plus gives us a peaceful surrounding in which to chat and relax.

Museum. We have a local free museum, which holds activities during the holidays, again, we try to go once a week.

You make dinner days. Each Friday the girls take turns to plan and prepare (or help me to) that evenings meal. We usually make an afternoon of it, search through recipe books, shop for ingredients, design placemats, and of course, the prep and eating!


And to keep myself sane during the holidays, I find a good stash of wine and chocolate for the evenings helps!

betterlife

Hi, i have 4 children aged 14yrs, 11yrs, 9yrs and 7yrs. I work from home, so will try and do some work in the evening on some days when we plan to go out, and then work during the day on home days!! I`ve prepared so far buy searching for free local events, like the regattas and air shows, im in devon and the red arrows are visiting about 4 times so there marked on the calender, also theres 2 days of firework championships so those evenings are marked down. I have a new paddling pool for the garden, and have bought/printed so craft activities for the younger 2, as the older ones tent to go out with friends.
I was thinking of having themed weeks, so one week will be pirate themed, one day pirate/peter pan themed craft activities : making pirate hats and maps, indian head dresses, visit the seaside and go rock pooling, maybe fish and chip by the sea one night etc etc. we also plan to go fossil hunting at Lymme regis so will have an exploring week, doing that and we may be able to borrow a metal detector so will use that at beach or farm fields with permission, will do craft activies and movies (goonies, national treasure etc) bug and wildlife week, make a bug house for garden, got cheap insect set with pot, magnifying glass, net etc from home bargains, visit local wildlife reserve , take picnic, take photo`s, pick up insect books from charity shop. camping week/days, in garden on dartmoor (free in certain area`s) google for more idea`s xx

kaymumof3

u all sound very organized this weekend, we have had a bit of a sort through got a carload of stuff to take charity shop and a list of things we need to get for summer holidays like glue/sellotape/batteries for toys/ a connector for our tap to connect the hose so hopefully things can run smoothly my brother has kindly sorted my garden now all i need is a pool and some sunshine!!

i have been looking out for free/cheap events, found a few through facebook have jotted them all down to also help family members who are childminding who maybe wondering wat to do with them. have also asked freinds and family if they have spotted any good parks about and quite a few have so we will visit some parks go swimming beach and woods

im also thinking of doing themed weeks i have some pirate bunting and a pin the eye patch on the pirate game i picked up in asda for 25p each hoping to get to homebargins for some gold coins and let my 11year old draw map/decide clues for 7 year old to hunt have found a cheap museum at charsletown full of pirates n boats well that will be week one