Enjoy the school holidays by getting creative

April 30, 2020

Here are some fabulous tips to keep kids busy during the school holidays! Enjoy!

Tie Dye

We LOVE LOVE LOVED making these tie-dye tops and shopping bags! We bought a simple kit online and some plain white tops and bags. The process was sooo much simpler than I expected, the kids loved getting involved with tying the knots and bands into the fabric, applying the dye (Ezra was a bit too young to do this bit), then leaving it to set, washing and drying. As you can see, the end result looks great!

For some easy tie-dye tips take a look here…
https://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/how-to-tie-dye-shirts/

Fake Snow Messy Play

I had no idea that Fake Snow could be so easily made at home and it was a discovery that came at great delight to the little ones! We have played with this snow many times since we made it as it can easily be stored in a container (so isn’t too wasteful like some messy play activities)! Be prepared for a bit of a mess after this activity (it looked like there had been an actual snowstorm in my kitchen) but it is totally worth it! And I can’t deny I loved playing with it too!

Here is a simple recipe and more fake snow ideas…
https://www.thebestideasforkids.com/fake-snow/

Making a volcano (with exploding larva)

There are so many different ways of making your volcano- we used things from our recycling box to make ours! Using an old box as a base (this also stopped the larva from spilling on the floor and making too much mess), then screwed up old paper and plastic bags around a yoghurt pot and stuck it all down with masking tape to make the mountain shape. We then enjoyed painting the mountain and decorating around the base with real leaves!

We followed an easy recipe to make the larva splutter and spill over the top of our volcano…it was so much fun and kept us entertained for ages!

Here are a few different ways of creating volcanoes
and doing some simple science with the kids…
https://inspirationlaboratories.com/10-ways-to-make-a-volcano-with-kids/

Baking

We love baking (and eating) cakes and cookies! Whilst I know that baking with the kids is not a new idea, it has been something that we love doing together so much that I had to mention it! We have particularly loved making gingerbread men and rock buns…both of which we have substituted the sugar for Coconut sugar (which is a slightly healthier alternative to refined white sugar…so we can all feel slightly less guilty about eating all our yummy home-baked treats!!).

Yummy!

Painting hand and footprints

Again, I know this is not a new idea but Ezra loved doing this activity and I loved watching him giggling away as I painted his tiddly toes!! We made our footprint pictures into little animals with googly eyes and snipped out paper beaks! These made great little cards to send the grandparents!

For loads of great footprint, ideas take a look at Pinterest…
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/momdot/handprints-and-footprints-crafts/

Making with recycling

We have been keeping aside some of our pieces of useful recycling to use when we are making and crafting! Old tea bag boxes have become one of our faves! By simply covering the box in paper and then adding ears, arms, legs and accessories we were able to make some of Ezra’s favourite characters! He has been so chuffed with the outcome that they proudly sit lined up on his bedroom shelf!