Our Families 10 Fun Activities for the School Holidays

Ok So I am one of those annoying mums, you know the ones that go around saying School is overrated. No that doesn't mean that I don't want my children to learn, doesn't mean that I want to home school, or un-school my children.  I am more than happy for them to go to traditional school. But I love the School holidays.

I love the fact for two weeks (longer at Christmas) I don't have to worry about school lunches, school uniforms, battling with my children to get out of bed. But even more than that I get to play with them. I get to be a child again.

A quote I found recently that I love is "Today is the childhood our children will remember". I want them to remember a fun childhood of playing outside, cooking, exploring. Not just I Pad's, TV and Xbox's.

So each holidays we put together a list of must do Activities, these activities change each school term and as the names suggest we 'must do'. They are a mixture of the Children's suggestions as well as some of my own.

1- Make Easter Moulds - As a child I loved making chocolate moulds so I decided that this holidays we were going to make Easter moulds, We bought (And ate) way too much chocolate, we ended up with Chocolate everywhere, and it was just as much fun as I remembered.

2- Take them to a Movie - Ok I cheated on this one. My husband took them to see Lego Movie, as the thought of taking a 6 month old, 20 Month old along was to much for me to bare.

3- Have a 'late night watching movies at home' - In our house we have Friday night family movie night' where we sit together and watch a movie, a show together as a family, we have popcorn, and the kids get to stay up late. I only realised how much the two older kids valued this time, this week when invited around to a relatives house for dinner they asked 'But will we be home in time for our family night"

4- Go somewhere new - On the weekend we took the kids to a Rural lifestyle expo, we wandered around, checking out the animals, wandering inside water tank displays, climbing on tractors. We weren't there for long just a couple of hours, but it was amazing the different questions they asked, the different things they were interested in.

5- Stay home all day. Nowadays life gets so busy, sometimes its nice to get up, change into comfy home clothes and play. Not o have to worry about going anywhere, doing anything. Just relaxing at home.

6- Have an Electronics free day. This is one that often takes a bit for the kids to get used to, its something I try and do regularly, its amazing how much better they play when the Xbox, the IPad's, the TV is off. The children get to really use their imagination, I find there are less complaints, less drama. I find I spend more time playing with them.

7- Visit an animal or two (or more) - As our children have got older, we have got ourselves a Zoo Victoria membership - http://www.zoo.org.au/members , this allows us unlimited entry to Healesville Sanctuary, Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo for 12 months. We can also visit Taronga Zoo, Adelaide Zoo, Perth Zoo, Western Plains Zoo, and Monarto Zoo. So each school holidays we try and visit at least one if not more of the zoos. All the children have a great time, and as we have already paid for membership, and we pack our trunk (elephant) lunchboxes. It is a cheap but enjoyable day.

8- Visit their grandparents (or have them visit us), We are extremely lucky to have 4 amazing grandparents in our children's life that live within driving distance to us. It is important for us that our children spend time with their grandparents, so each holidays we try and spend at least a day with there grandparents. Sometimes that will mean them coming up and visiting us, or other times it will mean meeting up somewhere halfway for lunch.

9- Cooking - one of my favourites. My two older children love cooking so each holidays I get the video camera out, set up the tripod and they make their own episode of 'alive and cooking'. They have so much fun, and I get great family videos to keep and cherish for years to come.

10- Become a Paparazzi - With 5 years between my first and second two children, I have found that with the children at school, I have so many photos of my youngest two, but often wont have many of the older two, so over the holidays I become the paparazzi. With the advantage of modern smart phones, I make sure I take photos all the time especially of my 'big kids' and I try to make sure that I am sometimes in the picture.

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