Top tips for school summer holiday planning

With only a couple of weeks to go until the children break up for the summer holidays, now is the time to start planning ahead say MOLLY MAID, the domestic cleaning experts. Six to eight weeks can seem like an eternity and with the uncertain British weather, it is always a good idea to do some summer holiday planning to have up your sleeve.

1. Start with a wall planner divided into the weeks and days to put up in a visible place for the family to see to avoid the constant questioning of what is happening when.
2. Fill in any activities or visits that are already in the diary. Your wall planner will help you see the gaps at a glance.
3. To help fill the vast voids in the summer holiday plan consider the following:
   • Your work commitments.
   • Visiting friends and relatives.
   • Hosting friends and relatives.
   • Planned holidays away from home.
   • Play dates or similar.
   • Specific days out such as a trip to the zoo, museum, cinema, water park.
   • Projects: Such as a specific gardening task. Ask the children what they would enjoy doing.

4. It is a good idea to intersperse your weeks with at least one of the above activities so that children have something to look forward to each week – whether it is a play date with friends, the grandparents coming to stay or a trip to the local zoo.
5. When doing your summer holiday planning, remember to take the British weather into consideration and have a ‘wet weather plan’ on standby! The following activities tend to work well:
   • Baking: This can be as simple or as sophisticated depending on the age range.
   • Dressing up box: Ask the children to put on a show or have a dressing up competition.
   • Themed day: Have a ‘themed’ day, such as an Olympic athlete where the children have to research and Olympian or a roman and find out as much information about the topic as possible with the incentive of a prize at the end.
   • Library: Have a trip to the library! It’s amazing how much fun children can have at the library.
   • Picture collage: Ask children to put their technology skills to good use and ask them to create a collage of pictures on their ipads or phones using an app called Pic Collage.

6. Make sure that you have plenty of ‘activities’ for the children to amuse themselves with for period of time on their own or for use when playing together at home. These will be your saving grace.
   • Acquire several supersoakers and water pistols.
   • Install a paddling pool that you can reasonably fit in your garden.
   • Build them a den of some sort – whether it’s a teepee made from garden canes or a blanket slung over the washing line, both have the desired effect!
   • Buy some car washing equipment and challenge them to the ‘shiniest car’ in the street!
   • Make sure you have swing ball or something similar installed in your garden.

7. Closer to the time, keep an eye on the weather forecast and make sure that the activity you have planned for the following day is going to be appropriate. At least you’ll then have time to plan something more suitable overnight!
8. Remember not to plan every minute as children need to have some time to wind down from school and enjoy being at home. You’ll enjoy not spending your time in the car too rushing from one activity to another.

Have fun!

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