Summer Activities For The Kids - What Have You Got In Store?

You probably did this as a child yourself. For weeks you would get excited about the Summer Holidays, but after a few days of freedom you’d get bored and start pestering your parents to take you out. You didn’t? Are you sure?

Well the holidays are upon us and as usual I have spent weeks thinking of fun activities to do with my kids. And I think this year I may have surpassed myself.

Instead of just doing the usual – play areas, parks, painting/collages and going to the seaside – this year I plan to do something different which won’t only occupy them for hours, but is unlikely to leave them bored within the first 30 minutes.

Here are my ideas:

  1. Create an herbal garden – whenever I garden my toddler in particular loves to start digging and pulling at the leaves beside me. With that in mind, I have spent the last week preparing a section of my garden so we can plant our own herbs i.e. chamomile, parsley, evening primrose etc.

    My idea is to let the kids pick their own herbs and herbal seeds, get them to plant them and care for them over the summer. But similar to the sunflower competitions you did at school, I plan to split this patch into sections – 1 for each of my kids – so I can give them the same plants and offer a prize to whoever grows the biggest herbs and takes the best care of them.

  2. Making soaps/candles – you might think this sounds a bit drab, but if your kids are creative and like making things from scratch then this might surprisingly interest them.

    For both you can easily get books and with the range of soap moulds, essential oils and flower essences you can choose from, you can even get your kids to pick flowers from the garden to add to the soap.

    Admittedly I plan to test the water with this idea and see if they are interested in helping, but I’m pretty confident they’ll love dipping the candles and picking flowers and petals for the soap.

  3. Cooking – I love cooking with my kids and learnt long ago that with the right recipes you can safely get them involved and have fun. Now you might hate the idea of letting your kids cook, but some of the following recipes will not only use the herbs from your garden but are kid friendly so you don’t have to worry about them injuring themselves.

    - Cinnamon roll
    - Fudge brownies (not exactly healthy I know but your kids won’t be able to resist helping you
    - Dips – dill is a fab herb for this and is quick to make which is ideal if they have got a short attention span
    - Pizza – if you make the base you can keep this relatively healthy and use herbs such as basil, garlic, oregano and parsley from your herb garden to make your sauce

    Take a look online yourself to see more recipes that you can cook with your kids.

Of course I plan to do the usual activities with my kids such as take them on nature walks, swimming, cycling, adventure areas etc – but I’m quite drawn to the idea of doing something different and these I feel are a good starting point.

However if you’ve got some more fun activity suggestions that I haven’t mentioned, let me know. I’m always looking for new ideas…

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