Ah, it’s the June – July break coming up. And you know what that means: kids with free reign to cause havoc! Burning down the house! Terrorising the neighbourhood cats! Or maybe just something as mundane as staring zombie-like into the TV screen for hours on end. What to do? Well, we’ll tell you how to keep the kids entertained over the school holidays.

Keep the kids entertained.

Create an obstacle course in the garden.

This one is great if you have overly-active kids or simply want to expend their energy in a healthy way. Obstacle or “assault” courses, as referred to by militaries, are courses used all over the world to train soldiers and get them fighting fit.

You don’t even need a lot of space in your garden for one. Simply buy our ribbons or rolls of string and lay two lines side by side at about a shoulder and a half-length distance from each other. (The shoulder and a half, obviously, being the shoulder of the most broad-shouldered child.)

Then run a windy course that snakes in and out of the garden.

Next, you’ll want actual obstacles. Well, you know those cardboard boxes you may still have left over from Christmas and Easter time? The larger ones can be made into obstacles of all kinds. Such as taking an old sleeping bag, cutting a hole on the other side, and affixing both ends to cardboard boxes that act as entrance and exit. It’s a great way to keep the kids entertained.

Preparation is part of the fun.

Part of the fun can even be painting the cardboard boxes the day before (an activity in itself!)  and then the put-together obstacle can be called: The Tunnel of Doom™ or whatever fun names the kids decide to give it.

Other boxes can be used as obstacles that need to be hopped over.

You can build an obstacle with intertwining string affixed to boxes on opposite sides of the course, and at this section, the kids have to leopard crawl under them. This will keep the kids entertained.

Other things.

Use chairs, and other things, that need to be ducked under, and so on. The possibilities from everyday household items are endless. The kids then run the course one by one and someone time them with a stopwatch. They each have five rounds (or however many they decide) and each time taken will be tallied with the other rounds to give the best overall time.

The victor can win something special (it’s an important part of the activity: to incentive it!) such as a PNA Gift Voucher. (And maybe sets of our modelling clay for the other kids as a “participation prize”).

Treasure hunt!

Aaaar, me hearties, we’re a lookin’ fer Blackbeard’s lost treasure, buried shortly befir he be losin’ his seadog of a head to a Redcoat cutlass!

Yes, one thing kids love is pirates. Hopefully not the type that download our favourite television shows illegally (who needs to anyway, with Netflix?). But pirates of ye olde golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, where ships had cannon balls and sails, men were men, and women sometimes dressed like men and then pirated you just the same (ever heard of Mary Read and Anne Bonny – the latter living to the grand old age of 80 despite the short lifespan many pirates tended to have? Imagine the stories she told her grandkids about her younger days!).

Well, recreate the adventure.

First, find something to treasure! It can be anything, but we recommend those delicious coin-shaped chocolates wrapped in gold paper. They resemble doubloons, which were the gold coins common during the Golden Age of Piracy along the Spanish Main. So they’re fitting. Next, get one of our wooden unpainted boxes at your nearest PNA and get the kids to paint it in a rich red-brown colour like classical treasure chests.

Keep the kids entertained with treasure.

Place the coins in the chest, then when the kids are asleep, find a spot in the garden (or somewhere secretive in the house) and bury or hide it there.

Next, make a map similar to the ones pirates used to locate their treasure. You can make it look really realistic. Our blog post on making an Easter Egg Map will help you do it perfectly to spec. Have a read.

Then when done, you’ve got a fun activity for the kids.

Keep the kids entertained with a nature walk. (And nature sketching.)

All around the country, wherever you stay, there are nature trails that make for a nice outing for the family. Simply pick one where you’re likely to spot small critters or fascinating, colourful birds. We have so many interesting species of avian in the country that birdwatchers from around the world actually come here for the sole purpose of doing birdwatching tours. This will definitely keep the kids entertained.

Get each of the kids a sketch pad and a sketching pencil.

Now you’re ready for our adventure.

Wherever you do decide to go, when you see some eye-catching wildlife, have the kids quickly sketch what they see to the best of their ability. It will help improve their ability to draw and give them an eye for detail. It will even improve their memory centres if the subject flies away before they’re done with their sketch.

You can make this a daytrip and by the end of it, they should have plenty of nice sketches they’ll be proud of.

Holiday Diary.

Have the kids create a holiday diary. This is easy and fun. Simply stop by us and get scrapbooking supplies, then at the end of each day they can add to their scrapbooked diary memoir; it might be nice to let them use your phone’s camera to record special moments, then print out those pictures (remember to restock on ink – we’ve got you covered), cut them out and paste them in their scrapbook.

It’ll be awesome, involve some time investment on their part, and keep a valuable treasure for years to come. It can even become an annual occurrence. And will help to keep the kids entertained for a long time. But it has other uses too. For one thing, when they’re all grown up and left home, you can keep the diaries in a special safe place – and in your heart.