Five Free Children’s Activities for this Half-term

This is a guest post from Gemma, a multi talented fellow blogger blogging at Our Muslim Homeschool.

With half-term approaching, now is the time to start thinking about what you will be doing this school holiday. More often than not, we end up letting our children watch too much TV, taking them shopping, or spending lots of money on entertainment and trips out (zoo, theme parks, play centres etc.).

Think again! None of these activities are necessary to entertain your children. In fact, some of them are blatantly damaging! Children need and prefer our time and attention. So this half-term, let’s give them just that!

As parents we often feel pressurised to take our children out to expensive theme parks, or to do exciting (but costly) activities with them; and whilst this is great for the occasional treat, it can get very expensive if you are doing these things for every school holiday.

For many of companies, school holidays are their most profitable time of year and they will pull out all their marketing tricks to get you to part with your cash! Don’t be fooled!

There are plenty of activities that you can do this half-term for nothing; activities that are WHOLESOME, EDUCATIONAL and FREE!!! You do not need to spend a lot of money to entertain you family during the school holidays.

1) Get Outdoors!

Even if you live in a city like me, there are still lots of outdoor spaces you can visit. City parks are beautiful this time of year.

We love taking walks around, kicking the leaves, identifying trees, chasing squirrels, picking blackberries, or just having a lazy picnic in the glorious sunshine.

2) Cook with the children

Yes, I know it’s not technically free, but you were going to eat anyway right!?!?

Cooking with you kids can be so much fun if you just relax, and accept that it’s going to get messy! Otherwise you’ll end up snapping at them and frantically trying to wipe up every spill and splash they make.

Just remember that you can always clean up after you’re done. The memories you make now will last forever…So don’t ruin it!

Pumpkins are in all this shops at this time of year, so we bought one for only £1, and made these delicious muffins with other ingredients we already had in our pantry.

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8515/fresh-pumpkin-muffins.aspx

3) Free Events 

Increasingly, councils are organising free events during school holidays. These can vary from workshops at the museum, free plays at the park, free sports lessons, puppet shows at the library …the list goes on and on.

The best way to find out what is going on in your area is to do a Google search. So get online and check out what your local council had organised for free this half-term!

4) Autumn Crafts

Anyone who has kids has at least some arts and crafts supplies in their home. This half-term, why not make good use of them, and encourage the kids to make some autumn crafts.

Here is a quick and fun craft we did using art supplies that we already had and a few leaves that we collect from the park.

5) Arrange a Movie Night

Or a movie day! Next time you’re in the library for books pick up a few DVDs too. Or if you are a Netflix or Amazon Prime member it’s even easier to find a good family film.

Then organise a special night of movies and popcorn. Instead of popcorn we opted for homemade cookies! Then snuggle up in from of the screen and enjoy some time together as a family.

If you’d prefer to go to the cinema, Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinema offer special promotions for the school holidays, where you can purchase very cheap tickets for the family if you don’t mind going in the morning.

So this half-term, I hope you’ll make the  most of your time together as a family and find things you can all enjoy. You don’t need to spend lots of money to make happy memories!

What have you got planned this half-term? Please leave a comment below and share your ideas!

Do you think its o.k. to treat your children to expensive trips during the half-term, or should families to more simple pleasures?

What do you think?

Thank you for stopping by!

Please remember us in your duaas.

Peace and love,