With our very first 6-week school summer holiday starting today I'm keen to find lots of fun ideas for my 5 year old, Lara, busy and inspired over the long summer break. Kitchen retailer Betta Living has put together a Kids in the Kitchen guide with lots of different activities that can be done in your own kitchen for as little as 99p. We have been trying out a few of the activities and so we though we would share our top ten with you today (don't worry, the rest will come next week!).
Betta Living have found that the cost of entertaining a child over the six week summer holiday can cost over £1000 with family tickets to theme parks and attractions taking up a sizeable chunk of this. For us, as a working family, the cost of childcare over the holidays means that when we aren't working, we need to find fun things to do as a family that don't cost too much. We love some of these fab Kids in the Kitchen ideas which can all be done for around £50 in total and all within the comfort of your own home (so no need to worry about the weather!)
1. Create A Kitchen Garden
As you may know, my girls need little encouragement to get growing but we loved the idea of making a little kitchen garden to live on our window ledge. The girls decorated some little pots with craft materials and we planted a few new seeds - some lavender which should be lovely and fragrant next summer and some salad leaves. We have brought in a couple of our smaller tomato plants, chilli plants and young bean plants to live on the kitchen window too. The girls love the sense of responsibility and ownership of having plants of their own that they have to tend each day.
2. Create Weetabix Friends And Faces
Holly LOVES her Weetabix and she is also a fruit-monster so you should have seen the look on her face when her big sister made her a Weetabix face from fruit!
3. Play The Memory Game
The memory game brings back lots of brilliant memories for me. I'm sure my Mum used to play this at our birthday parties! Place lots of everyday items from the kitchen on a tray and let everyone take a look. Then cover with a tea-towel and remove an item. Remove the tea towel and see who is first to remember which item is missing.
4. Hold a Teddy Bear Tea Party
Lara is very practiced in the art of tea parties. On a sunny day you could host your tea party in the garden on a picnic mat.
5. Weetabix Jenga
Not as easy as it sounds!
6. Cut Out And Decorate Paper Dolls Or Robots
The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb is a beautiful book that both of my girls love. It inspired this activity of downloading a printable paper doll template to colour in and cut out. If dolls aren't your think then why not make paper robots instead? You can decorate your dolls with sparkly craft items to make this activity even more fun.
7. Be A Kitchen Scientist
Make your own exploding volcano in your own kitchen. Sprinkle some baking powder into the base of the container and slowly poured in the vinegar. Watch the chemical reaction unfold with wonder. Amazeballs!
8. Create Wooden Spoon Characters
With a few bargain wooden spoons you can create a whole host of puppet characters. Add paint, wool, ribbon or fabric to really bring your characters to life.
9. Create A Saucepan Band
This is an activity that children of all ages enjoy. Raid the cupboards for pots and pans of different shapes and materials that will make a range of groovy noises. Supply your children with two wooden spoons each. Apply earplugs. Enjoy.
10. Play Dress Up And Put On A Play
At 5 years old, Lara's imagination is unstoppable. While her younger sister hasn't quite grasped the concept of putting on a show, Lara loved dressing up in all of her dressing up outfits to choose a character and put her drama-club skills to good use with a show for us. We used simple masks from starcutouts.com to allow the girls to create new characters for their show (the story was a little hard to understand but they had great fun.
Betta Living have found that the cost of entertaining a child over the six week summer holiday can cost over £1000 with family tickets to theme parks and attractions taking up a sizeable chunk of this. For us, as a working family, the cost of childcare over the holidays means that when we aren't working, we need to find fun things to do as a family that don't cost too much. We love some of these fab Kids in the Kitchen ideas which can all be done for around £50 in total and all within the comfort of your own home (so no need to worry about the weather!)
1. Create A Kitchen Garden
As you may know, my girls need little encouragement to get growing but we loved the idea of making a little kitchen garden to live on our window ledge. The girls decorated some little pots with craft materials and we planted a few new seeds - some lavender which should be lovely and fragrant next summer and some salad leaves. We have brought in a couple of our smaller tomato plants, chilli plants and young bean plants to live on the kitchen window too. The girls love the sense of responsibility and ownership of having plants of their own that they have to tend each day.
2. Create Weetabix Friends And Faces
Holly LOVES her Weetabix and she is also a fruit-monster so you should have seen the look on her face when her big sister made her a Weetabix face from fruit!
3. Play The Memory Game
The memory game brings back lots of brilliant memories for me. I'm sure my Mum used to play this at our birthday parties! Place lots of everyday items from the kitchen on a tray and let everyone take a look. Then cover with a tea-towel and remove an item. Remove the tea towel and see who is first to remember which item is missing.
4. Hold a Teddy Bear Tea Party
Lara is very practiced in the art of tea parties. On a sunny day you could host your tea party in the garden on a picnic mat.
5. Weetabix Jenga
Not as easy as it sounds!
6. Cut Out And Decorate Paper Dolls Or Robots
The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb is a beautiful book that both of my girls love. It inspired this activity of downloading a printable paper doll template to colour in and cut out. If dolls aren't your think then why not make paper robots instead? You can decorate your dolls with sparkly craft items to make this activity even more fun.
7. Be A Kitchen Scientist
Make your own exploding volcano in your own kitchen. Sprinkle some baking powder into the base of the container and slowly poured in the vinegar. Watch the chemical reaction unfold with wonder. Amazeballs!
8. Create Wooden Spoon Characters
With a few bargain wooden spoons you can create a whole host of puppet characters. Add paint, wool, ribbon or fabric to really bring your characters to life.
9. Create A Saucepan Band
This is an activity that children of all ages enjoy. Raid the cupboards for pots and pans of different shapes and materials that will make a range of groovy noises. Supply your children with two wooden spoons each. Apply earplugs. Enjoy.
10. Play Dress Up And Put On A Play
At 5 years old, Lara's imagination is unstoppable. While her younger sister hasn't quite grasped the concept of putting on a show, Lara loved dressing up in all of her dressing up outfits to choose a character and put her drama-club skills to good use with a show for us. We used simple masks from starcutouts.com to allow the girls to create new characters for their show (the story was a little hard to understand but they had great fun.
