Last week I posted on 10 Children’s Activities For June/July School Holidays. There is always such an amazing amount of wonderful activities on offer in Melbourne. With that said however, I am mindful that during the school holidays, my kids need to rest. In particular my little girl who is in her first year of school.
As the end of a term comes, I find the kids are tired, which leads to them being more emotional and looking for a break from the morning school routines (so is mum 
).
Again with this list of things to do at home, we would not do all the activities. During the school holidays my kids need less structured activities, allowing them time simply to wind down at their own pace and play/read etc but choose to spend their time doing what interests them.
It is also important that they do not become reliant upon me always providing entertainment for them. The oldest of our four children are all at ages where they are capable of finding ways to entertain themselves (3 year old may need some guidance at times though).
So our school holidays in June/July will be made up of a couple key outings, a couple of key projects/activities at home and plenty of time for the kids to relax and follow their own interests. So I manage to catch with friends I usually try an d combine the outings with friends, so that we still have plenty of down time for the kids to recharge before they head back to school.
1. Make Lemonade
A traditional favourite with my kids and in Australia lemons are in season in June and July, so even if you don’t have your own lemon tree, you can pick them up cheaply at the market.
If you are after some instructions for your little ones to follow, itty bitty love has a lovely photo tutorial.
2. Reverse Finger Painting
Image by SquiggleMum
Hopefully for the water reserves in Melbourne there will be some rain over these school holidays. Rain however does usually mean being copped inside the house, so I loved this painting idea by Kate that SquiggleMum posted about earlier this month. As the paint is confined to the tray, there is much less mess than conventional painting, so easier to do inside the house.
3. Story Theatre
Image by Red Bird Crafts
Red Bird Crafts has a beautiful tutorial on how to make your own story theatre. In the tutorial Emily uses cut out pictures, but you could just as easily let your child be the artist and have them draw the characters for their play.
4. Mandalas
Inspired by the Mandala Post on Let’s Explore I bookmarked some sites that provide free mandala print outs for children to colour in. These would be perfect for the kids to colour in on a rainy day.
Mandala is the Sanskrit word for “sacred circle.” Native American, Hindu, and Buddhist Tantric practices have use Mandalas for thousands of years to express illuminated states of consciousness and for healing the body, mind, and spirit. Paper Mandalas
5. Chalk Drawing And Water Painting
We have a paved brick area at the back of our house. It provides a perfect large canvas for the kids to draw with chalk. We generally combine this activity with small buckets of water and large paintbrushes. They can then paint away the chalk if they wish, or paint the brick wall with water.
6. Camping Inside
My kids love camping and we don’t get to do it anywhere near as often as we would like. This holidays as we are not going away and it is in the middle of winter, we will have a camping night inside. We get out the sleeping bags, light the fire (which we rarely do) toast some marshmallows and sleep all the children can sleep together in the sitting room.
7. Giant Cardboard Construction
Image by Filthy Wizardry
At Filthy Wizardry they show you how you can build an enormous cardboard rocket ship which as illustrated above is impressive! On the other hand you just allow for a more free form project. Collect boxes from markets, supermarkets etc and let the children’s imagination run wild
8. Make A Movie
The majority of the earlier activities are more suitable for children 6 and under. This activity and the next couple are aimed at those over six. Get the kids to write a script that they can then turn into a movie, using props, costumes what ever they can find! Having a Mac makes it then very easy to teach them how to edit it using iMovie.
9. Balloon Volleyball
Rig up some string across a room and allow the kids to play a game of balloon volley ball. This keeps my older boys amused for ages.
10. Cook A Meal
Allowing the kids to plan the meal, create a shopping list, make the selections at the supermarket and then cook a meal for the family.
