It's All About West

Page 24 It’s All About West Swindon
Stress Free Summer Holidays
Place a piece of thick cardboard inside the
t-shirt to make decorating easier.
• It’s never too early (or late) to get children
interested in cookery. Everybody needs to
learn to cook although children do need
constant supervision. Ensure you have all
the ingredients before you even suggest
this activity otherwise there may be tears
if you suddenly have to make a trip to
the shops. For very small children, make
a batch of biscuit dough in advance and
keep it in the fridge. All that then needs
to be done is to roll it out so even the
youngest child can enjoy cutting out the
shapes, and everyone enjoys eating the
ﬁ nished biscuits.
• Make sock puppets and act out a story,
whether a well-known fairy tale or even
better, a family anecdote, which can often
throw up some interesting perspectives. All
you need are some old socks, buttons or
stickers for eyes and some imagination.
• Get out of the house as much as possible.
S
ummer holidays can seem endless
Go for walks and explore the area even if
when you have to entertain children,
it means donning waterproofs and wellies.
especially as ﬁ nances are tight and
Visit your local library, which is a great
entrance fees to a big attraction can blow
activity anyway, but you will also ﬁ nd
a month’s budget in one day. Bored and
information on local events which you can
irritable children lead to stressed and irritable
note for future days. Most museums are
parents, so here are some ideas to help
still free and offer things for children to do
keep everyone happy and that will cost very
as they go around such as questionnaires
little or even nothing at all.
and activities. Have a picnic in the garden
• Create and ﬁ ll a box with inexpensive art
or local park if the weather permits, or if
and craft supplies. Empty plastic bottles,
it doesn’t have a picnic in the house and
boxes, tubes and other ‘rubbish’ can be
pretend you are somewhere else.
turned into all manner of wonderful models
You’ll ﬁ nd summer holidays much easier to
when a child’s imagination is stimulated
deal with if you plan ahead so that you aren’t
(think Blue Peter ‘here’s one I made
casting around for ideas when you hear
earlier’). This is a very useful standby to
the inevitable cry of “I’m bored”. As well as
produce on the inevitable rainy days.
planning speciﬁ c days, it’s well worth splitting
• Other rainy day or inside activities can
individual days into sessions as well such as
include making jewellery out of dried pasta
morning, lunch, afternoon and so on. Use
tubes threaded onto wool or for older
these weeks as an opportunity to encourage
children beading can be absorbing, time-
your child’s interest in the world around them
consuming and very satisfactory.
and to get those creative juices ﬂ owing and
• Encourage your child to start a diary or
maybe some of these ideas will turn into
scrapbook which they can work on the day
engrossing hobbies in years to come.
after a bigger day out.
Finally children prefer structure so a
• Buy some cheap, plain light coloured
regular routine to start the day is good and
T-shirts, some fabric paints or pens and
don’t forget to plan in some ‘me-time’ too
let your child decorate their own clothes.
which will make the days pass more easily
To Advertise please call 01793 859604 or e-mail info@itsallabout.org.uk
Issue 5 West.indd 24 30/07/2009 17:03
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