Hello Friends! As a busy mom of two young children (5- & 2-year-old) I’m always looking for fun, budget-friendly and engaging activities that I can do with our children. In the current climate, I’m keen to incorporate activities that cost little to no money to do. Entertaining the kids does not always have to cost a lot of money. So, I thought I would share some of the activities that I do with our kids that are fun and budget friendly. It’s the school holidays here in the UK and so we’ll be doing these activities with the children to help keep them entertained, engaged. I would love to know your suggestions and ideas in the comments too because we’re all about learning from each other and I could do with some new ideas too. So here goes.
1. Going out in nature/ to a local park for walks, to play and explore is a firm favourite in our house. I think it’s the abundance of open space to run and the chance to explore, play and pick up lots of sticks in the process (please tell me it’s not just my child that does this, lol). Whatever it is, going out in nature for walks and playing in the park is a win. The children love it, and they also get to expel all that lovely energy which means naptime/bedtime can’t come quick enough. It’s a good idea to pack snacks and water/juice for the children and yourself when outdoors. Running around playing and exploring is tiring and thirsty work.
2. Craft activities are a great idea. I always make sure we have paper, colouring pens/pencils as well as scissors, paint, paint brushes, cello tape and/or glue to hand. These are great for engaging with craft activities. Children should be supervised especially when undertaking activities that require scissors and glue. I also save empty toilet paper rolls and empty cardboard boxes which are great to draw/colour on as well as to make things out of. A quick google search comes up with craft ideas for the empty toilet paper rolls and flattened out cardboard boxes. An easy, fun activity is to flatten out an empty cardboard box, provide some colouring pens and pencils and viola, you have an activity that keeps the children engaged. You can also set a challenge to draw something or leave it up to them to come up with something. If you are on Instagram, ‘@crafty.mums’ gives lots of great, fun, and educational ideas for craft activities.
3. Watching a movie together at home is a fun, bonding activity to do together. Bring out some popcorn (you can make your own popcorn with the kids or buy ready make popcorn), some drinks, put a film on at home and have a movie night or day. That’s a couple of hours that both kids and adults alike will enjoy. Make sure to pop on a child friendly film. Add some blankets, dim the lights and you have your very own cosy cinema experience at home. This is a lot cosier and cheaper than going out to the cinema. This is another firm favourite at our house.
4. Going to the local library & reading together is another cheap, fun, and educational activity to do with the kids. As a mum living in the UK, we are blessed to have local libraries that we can visit and borrow books from, free of charge. My daughter loved getting her first library card which allows her to borrow books regularly. She absolutely loves using her library card to borrow books. A trip to the library allows her to choose a book and she loves it when we read together. Most libraries we have visited have an area where you can read together. I found out recently that our local library also runs fun, free activities for children of different age groups so it’s a good idea to check out what’s happening in your local area.
5. Baking together does not require you to be an expert baker. Trust me, I know,lol. Whatever your level of expertise, this can be a wholesome, fun, and engaging activity. The beauty of this activity is in the preparation. A quick google search brings up many easy and fun baking recipes. It’s a great bonding and learning activity to do with the kids. It doesn’t have to be perfect and do expect a mess. Children will enjoy weighing out, adding, and mixing the ingredients to create a yummy final product. Great memories will be formed as well as lovely baked goodies at the end, yummy. Some of our household favourites are banana bread (a great way to use up bananas), pancakes and cookies.
So, these are five of some of the fun and budget friendly activities that we do together in our household. I’ll write another blog post of activities that you can set for the children which allows us mums to have some time to ourselves because you know, we need our ‘mum-time”. It’s perfectly fine for our children to play on their own too. Do you do some or all of the above activities? I would love to know your suggestions too so kindly share in the comments.
With all my love,
Esther x