Free Summer Holiday Planner is a paid collaborative post with Very designed to showcase their range of printers. Summer holidays, you either love them or hate them. Over the years I have veered from one camp to the other and the longer my children have spent in school the more I have come to love the time off over summer. However, I have one child that loves school routine and that is where the summer holiday planner came from.
Downbload your free summer planner and keep the kids entertained over the summer . We love summer, have you guessed yet. I adore spending the six weeks of the summer with my boys. I am lucky in that I can juggle my work and spend a lot of time with them. I also feel the strain sometimes at keeping the kids entertained over summer.
Summer holidays is nearly upon us, which means updating our summer bored jar activities. We have had a bored jar for the last four years and it has become something of a tradition in the Mad House, but the boys are getting bigger, so in addition to a bored jar, I have got a fab printable too
There’s no denying that over the long summer holidays children lose the momentum they’ve had for learning over the previous year at school. Key concepts might be forgotten and they could simply get out of the habit of applying their brain on a regular basis. It is beneficial to your children to keep their brains active over the summer holidays, especially if they are returning to exams, a particularly challenging year or even starting a new school.
It certainly feels like we are on the home stretch of school before the summer holidays now. My boys only have five weeks of school left and I am excited about planning for the summer. Earlier in the week I share with you how we customised a recipe book so that we can keep a record of all the family meals we cook and today I have a fab free summer planning calendar for you and a super competition.
Do you have adventurous kids? I do, in fact they are far braver than me. Nothing seems to scare my lads and there is nothing they enjoy more than an outdoor adventure. But the trick to getting your kids outdoors is to turn outdoor activities into outdoor adventures!
We are back this month with our beach picks from the fab Melijoe.com website. We live right by a beach, well 2 minutes drive away and my boys both love spending time on the beach both in the summer and the winter. The Mini Mads have had a good browse of the website and here are their choices. The boys are ten and nearly nine and have distinct personalities, so see if you can tell who picked which sets!
We are back this month with our summer picks from the fab Melijoe.com website. The Mini Mads have had a good browse of the website and here are their choices. The boys are ten and nearly nine and have distinct personalities, so see if you can tell who picked which sets!
My boys are eight and nine and this is our third summer of the Bored Jar and also the third summer that I have given them more freedom over the summer to. Now I am going to admit that it isn’t always plain sailing and that the boys have pushed boundaries in the past, but we all thrive from trusting each other.
Friday marked the last day of term for the minimas and I have been busy preparing for our summer. We are pretty freerange over the summer and I am a big believer in not over scheduling the boys or myself. But I find that the cleaning definitely takes a back seat, so I have been looking for cleaning hacks that can make our lives easier and get the boys involved more.
I have had a couple of weeks off Pinterestinly as real life has been getting rather busy! So what have I been pinning this week. Well it is the boys last week at school, so I have been pulling together some activities for the summer break
e kit did make for some interesting conversations about crystal structures and we spent one evening researching this on the computer and looking at salt and sugar under the microscope. Now the boys are at school I think this will get a lot more play as it is something they can start after school and continue with the next day.
The Human Body
As a family we LOVED this kit. It costs £27 from Hobby Craft, but is jam packed with things to do, games to play and experiments, such as building your own stethoscope and finding out about finger prints. It really tapped in to the boys imagination at 7 and 8. I think it was perfectly pitched for their age range. The kit is full of primary coloured based kit and is really engaging. It is not something you have to spend hours with all at once, as it is broken down in to different sections and covers the five senses. This has been returned to again and again over the summer and we still have more to do and use, plus it comes with a 48 page book. A super buy.
Puzzler Brain Games for the DS
This came in to its own on one of our many long road trips. It is perfect for all ages and both the boys, their cousin and the Frugals played with it. At under £12 it is a great value game for any DS owner. Rather than use it in main game mode, which is a 90 tournament designed to improve your brain, they played it in practice mode, which is more like accessing mini games. The 20 puzzles are based on training 4 different brain function categories – Visual, Word, Mathematical and Memory. During all thge time it was played over the summer the boys never had the same content twice, which was pretty impressive.
We had a fantastic time and refused to let the very angry, rude, offensive and classless man who decided to swear at Mini and threatened to “give him one” for bumping in to his child in the Angry birds park ruin our day. When I took him up on swearing at my child and asked that if he had any issues to come to me as his mother, he then threatened to hit me too and called me a fat bleep! It has come to something when a four year old turns round and feels the need to tell an adult that swearing is unacceptable!
We spent a fabulous couple of days at Kielder Forest staying at Leaplish water park last weekend and I have to say that it was AMAZING.
I promise a full review and update of our #EpicKielder adventure, but in the meantime I will leave you with some images.
Why not grab my badge if you are enjoying my #freerangesummer posts.
Why Should Parents Teach Their Kids Riding a Bicycle?
Parents should always encourage their children for riding bicycles. Riding bicycle induces self-confidence amongst children. It makes them feel that there is nothing in the world that they cannot manage with proper practice. Apart from building self-confidence, this activity also fortifies the relationship between parents and children. Parents try to spend more time with their children in order to teach them how to ride a bicycle. Both parents and children develop a friendly relation with each other.
When a child learns to ride a bicycle then he is exposed to the entire world. He is bound to face the world filled with adventure. It makes him stronger and capable of facing threats. Furthermore the child gets an opportunity to stay fit and active.
Tips to be followed before commencing with bike riding
Before commencing with bike riding, parents must ensure that what does the child thinks about riding a bicycle. When it comes to riding a bicycle, some children get pretty excited while some get afraid. Sporty children learn to ride bicycles overnight whereas the ones who are afraid may take number of days to learn. Latter situation should be dealt in a very sensitive way. If one really wants the child to learn bike riding then one must keep patience. Patience is the only way through which a child can learn to ride the bike thereby developing morale within.
Parents should buy appropriate bicycles for their children. Children learn faster when they have bicycles that match their size, age and needs. Parents can also choose to buy those bicycles which are attractive in color and are equipped with special instruments like helmets, safety guards and torches. The protective pads and helmet shall protect the child from any sort of injuries while the color of the bicycle shall pertain the interest of the child in riding it. Protect Your Bubble is making bike riding easy and safe by providing cheap and easy bike insurance. If you are helping your kid in learning how to ride a bicycle then make sure you give importance to bicycle insurance too. This will help your kid in riding tension free and they will learn fast. You can also encourage them more and more even if they are meeting with accidents again and again. This is simply because the insurance company will look after all the loss and it will not at all burn your pocket.
Encouraging kids for riding bicycles
Parents should always encourage their children to ride bicycles during their playtime. Parents are the only ones who can teach their children to remain active without hurting themselves. They should teach their children to relish their evenings and their journeys to school by riding bicycles with friends. Riding bicycle has numerous advantages. When a child learns to ride a bicycle then he becomes more active as well as self-dependent. It helps a child to conveniently visit his friends and market in case of needs. A child can ably do all his important tasks by riding his bicycle from place to another.
Teaching safety measures to the young ones
While teaching how to ride a bicycle, a parent also explains the importance of traffic rules to the child. This way the child gets aware about the traffic rules which help him till the end of his life. Moreover various safety tips are also imparted by the parents to the children. Parents teach their kids about the importance of being alert while crossing the road. These tips develop the mental level of the child. A child learns to remain more alert by emphasizing over the instructions of the parents.
While teaching bicycle riding to a Child, he is also told about which side he should ride and when he should blow horn and use torch light. A child who learns that Riding on the right-side of the road is safer shall remain safe throughout his life. Blowing horn when someone is before the vehicle, switching on the light when it is dark are few more tips which are equally necessary.
Teaching Bike riding- a nostalgic event
Learning how to ride a bicycle is one of the most important things that a parent should teach to his child. The brain of child imprints the instructions of the parents thereby following them throughout his life. A child who is well-explained the importance of traffic rules shall never disobey them. Such a child becomes a good citizen when he grows adult. He shall not only safeguard himself, but shall safe guard all the people who are near him. Thus it is utmost necessary for the parents to teach their children how to ride bicycles as it can render them with safe future. Learning how to ride a Bicycle includes some precious memories between a child and his parent. It is a nostalgic event which is cherished by the child and his parents throughout their lives.
I would love for you to link up any posts you might have about activities in the summer holidays.
We are also trying to reduce our dependance on screens for those I am boarded moments whilst waiting for food to be served or waiting in queses with small games and have recently been sent Dobble from Esdevium Games, which is a card game and the perfect size for keeping in my bag. It is a card game, which is based on the concept of snap and needs, speed, good observation and super fast reflexes. You can play up to five different mini games from the one tin of 55 cards (which are circular) and is a great game for all ages and is currently less than £10.
What are your favorite screen free pastimes?
