The school vacations have started or are about to start in our part of the world and parents are looking for different activities to keep our kids busy. Being a mom of two, a six-year-old, and a one-year-old, I have spent a significant amount of time trying to keep them busy during vacations over the last few years. Each kid is different and so are their interests. However, with a mix of a few activities, we can surely make this summer vacation fun for our kids. Here are a few activities that kids would love and can be a good stress buster for parents too :
DIY – D0 It Yourself (Crafts)
If there is one activity that kids and adults enjoy equally then it has to be the DIY activities. My elder one has learned the usage of scissors properly pretty recently and cutting different shapes is her favorite game nowadays. These crafts help promotes cognitive development which means they figure out how things work on their own. aside from learning patience and concentration, it encourages free-thinking and problem-solving skills. For example, last week we prepared tons of dresses and caps for our toys using old newspapers. The activity was fun and engaging.
There are plenty of fun experiments too which help the little kids understand the concept in a better way. From DIY candles to paper flowers, there are plenty of more options available on the internet to try during vacations.
Popsicles Making
The summer season calls for some popsicle-making sessions. My elder one absolutely loves eating fruits and we keep experimenting with different fruits. I am sharing the easiest recipe for this.
Take 250 ml of coconut water. Chop fruits of your choice, we opted for kiwi, oranges, and some blueberries. Mix it well and pour it into a popsicle mold. You can try this with a simple ice tray as well and use these cubes for mocktails. Adding sugar is optional, we like ours without any sugar.
There is another recipe that is my mom’s favorite and it includes Mango. In this part of the world, mangoes are found in abundance during summer. It is quite simple and needs only two ingredients.
Milk and Mango, blend the mango puree well with full cream milk and pour it into a mold. If the mangoes are sweet then the sugar is not required. Keep it in a fridge for four hours or more. Once it sets you can take it out of the mold and enjoy it!
Build a Castle
Back in our childhood days, my mother’s saree was at our rescue to build the castle under the table or in the corner of our room. Nowadays, there are plenty of other sturdy options available in the market to build these castles but nothing beats the charm of old sarees and bedsheets. Let them explore and create their own imaginary castles with bedsheets.
Well, I absolutely love building these mini castles and often am a part of this game. Allow the child to use their imagination as well as creativity to make a castle and then keep adding different items to make their imagination come to life.
Board games
Spending quality time together with the family helps in building a stronger bond with the kids. These games offer opportunities for early learning and are also helpful in our kids away from the screen. Do you remember playing MONOPOLY in your childhood or LUDO? The memories are stronger because we grew up playing these games with our siblings/parents.
Playing different board games helps children develop all the key skills that fall within the literacy bracket. Learning to wait for their turn or following the rules of the game, are some important lessons that serve kids far beyond the living room floor. Even the simplest of the games help the kids in identifying the colors, shapes, or different formats. It also helps in developing better hand-eye coordination.
Uno is our current favorite nowadays and no weekend goes without playing this at least once 🙂
Memory Book for the vacation
Who does not love to reminisce the beautiful memories through pictures and letters? If your kid enjoys coloring, painting, and crafts then this will definitely keep them busy for a longer period of time. Let their imagination take over with glitter pens and colorful tapes. Memory books simply mean a place where we can store all our information in pictures and writing for remembering back the good old times.
It is a wonderful way to share stories with your loved ones and not only that it also helps in practice writing and telling stories. I would love to remember these beautiful summer vacations when my kids are grown-ups 🙂
There are so many more interesting ways we can keep our kids occupied with fun yet learning exercises. This year we are planning to create a book club for this summer for the kids in our society.
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.
Please do not forget to subscribe to our newsletter and we promise not to spam you. Have you checked our parenting zone or recipe section? Also, if you like my work, don’t forget to follow me on INSTAGRAM.
All these ideas are great, especially the memory book!
These seems like amazing activities for kids
We have been doing and enjoyed all activities in last three summer vacationsc and in the covid era. Now they play in sun outdoor ?
I’m impressed by all of these ideas, will help me with the hours I’ll spend babysitting my nephews when they’re visiting on vacation!
Though my children have outgrown this stage and are mostly on their own now, I could have done with these ideas some years back. They are so needed.
Wow these are so interesting. Am definitely using these ideas
As a new aunt these are some great ideas I am storing for when my niece is a little older. Amazing ideas to bond with kids
Your post reminded me of my childhood. I grew up in a pre-globalization era of barely any TV. It is great to see kids these days rediscovering the activities we enjoyed.
Wonderful ideas….we seriously need these in summer vacations. Thanks for sharing this.
When my kids were younger, we used to play a lot of board games. These days kids are totally into gadgets. These are really good activities to get them away from it.
Madhu Bindra recently posted…Eggless Mango Semolina Muffins (Steamed)
All the activities listed are absolute delights for kids. Even baking can be added to the list. Making popsicles would be my personal favourite activity for kids as they love to eat them.
Great ideas ..to keep them busy ..i will try this with my niece ..as she is with me during her summer.
Really interesting ideas. I would have enjoyed doing all of them.
I really like your post Kavita, the activities u have suggested are amazing… I love your popsicle idea as well as my kids love them but I dont feel like making it with store bought juices. I like your memory book idea too.
Interesting activities. Kavita. When my grandsons were here in 2020, we did all these and more. They used to roll out puris, top the pizza. made cookies and a fruit basket.Kids have so much energy and we have to help them let out steam.
My younger niece’s board exams are over. These activities will her too.
We love the diy, board Games together also we keep digging into other activities. The bedsheet castle is like always there the cushions from our couch goes missing then ???
We did all sorts of activities for 3 summer vacations! Now it’s time to go to school! Hahaha!