What to do with the kids during the school holidays

First we had one for Little Miss Four – I just had this urge and thought, ‘there are just too many fun ideas for parties on pinterest to wait a whole year for another birthday!’

We invited five friends (because we have six seats at the table!) and had two organised activities, lunch and a back-up DVD!!

The table was set up with paper and pencils for drawing when the kids arrived, although the other toys lying around were more popular!

Activity 1…. Decorating crowns

 

I cut "crown shapes" out of ceral boxes and put out glitter, beads,flowers etc. to decorated with. This kept them occupied for about 30 minutes (anyone bored just went back to the other toys).

Activity 2…. Cupcake decorating

The kids had all now moved away from the crown making activity, so I set up cupcake decorating.  Brilliant! They especially lived the marshmallows and chocolate buttons - most didnt make it on to the cupcakes!! We decided everyone should do one for their mums too – mostly because it wasn’t really taking as long as I’d hoped!

Lunch time – and eating the cupcakes!

Somehow this all panned out smoothly until about 1.30, when the parents arrived.

Just before 1.30 I did put on the DVD, but just because my daughter really wanted to show her friends the DVD we borrowed from the library!!

No real costs for this; I bought some sprinkles and a couple of ingredients for the lunch, but mostly I just pulled things out of my craft cupboard for the crowns, and out of my pantry for the cupcakes.  And of course the $2.50 rental fee from the library (a more advanced planner would have gone on $1 rental day!!)

 

Mr Six’s party was postponed a week initially because six out of the five friends he was allowed to invite couldn’t come (that's backups too!!)! In the end five made it.

Boys are quite different from girls – I am so thankful it wasn’t raining! They played a lot of tag and a lot of something in the playhouse/fort, which fit in with my “stay outside until the next activity is ready” approach!

Activity 1…. Make your own pizza.

It was hard to NOT get involved – kids really don’t make good pizzas!! But I didn’t intervene and when it came time to eat them, the kids all scoffed them down!!  (And no sicknesses since!)

They were having so much fun outside I quietly asked my son if he still wanted to do the next activity. He did, and they all thought they could sit still and be quiet long enough, so…

Activity 2 – Mr Six doing an “Origami Jumping Frog Demo”

Probably a bit beyond most (all) of the kids, but they still seemed to enjoy it and proudly showed their parents. I did intervene with the frogs, just to keep them all on track. It seems my boy is quite the origami guru, and his idea of an “easy one, with only one hard bit” was not so easy!!

A bit more outside play and then, when they all seemed to be drifting inside, I offered up the DVD, pressing play just as the first mother arrived!!

Again, very low costs. Homemade pita bases, tin of pasta sauce, bacon, cheese, pineapple, random vegetables to keep it interesting and BBQ sauce for the “swirls” on top! Origami paper was just printer paper pre-cut into squares!

Successful Holiday Parties/Mass Play Dates – Check

 

Any ideas on what I can do next holidays?? ha