Winter School Holidays Survival Guide
As always, my kids are counting down the days until mid-year break. And as always, I have set
about to compile a list of all the amazing things we can and may tackle this
school holidays.
Winter has
always been a season I wish away. Bottomline is it’s cold and I freeze. I just
cannot justify flushing cash down the toilet with using a dryer or leaving
heaters all day. So usually my house is full of damp washing (that I do often
end up just throwing in the dryer after a few days) and kids who WILL insist on
playing tackle rugby inside when it’s wet outside. Nevermind the mud bath that
is our backyard, that get’s tramped all over our floors that need mopping
every day… O the joys of Winter school holidays!
So here I
sit planning, not because I’m super organised but because I live for this
stuff! I guess being a teacher at heart and planning youth events for a decade
has given me an outlet for this for years. But I love it! I love planning what
we’ll do, where we’ll go and with the youngest of my tribe being 4 now, it has
opened up a whole new way of tackling our time off together.
I hope
these ideas, my thoughts on paper and some handy research about what’s
available is helpful because I know I’ve read my share of mum blogs for
inspiration and it’s the way it’s meant to be! No competing, just picking each
other’s brains, living in community where one’s strengths are complimenting
another one of our weaknesses and in the end we all do life together, support
each other and raise our village babies together!
So, here’s
my list of (super fun) Winter Holiday activities!
1.
Disney Day
With recent
talks of our looming family Disneyland trip (the one we planned 3 years ago and
suddenly realised was meant to be happening next year…), I’ve realised how many
of the older Disney movies my kiddies haven’t seen! I said to them that in the
school holidays, we would definitely be watching a few of them. I was thinking
about choosing a cosy, stormy day for this when going out is not ideal. We will
watch movies and I’ll Pinterest some clever art/ craft/ baking activities
linked to the Disney movies we watch. Disney is such a broad theme and there’s
all sorts of age appropriate things (even as simple as colouring pictures from
random Disney colouring in books).
2.
LEGO Stop Motion Movie Making
This clever
activity is a full day of fun! I was recently asked to teach a creative
workshop at the kids’ school on this and I completely forgot how fun it is! It
only requires a very basic app like i-movie or anything like that on your phone
or on an i-pad and the skills required are so minimal, my kids worked it out
before I even taught them. The kids first task is to create a LEGO set. This
could be a house, a beach scene, a car on a road, anything they want in their
little movie. The next part of this is to make something that will move,
whether this is a little LEGO car or a person or an animal. The aim is for them
to set up the camera, to take photos of the exact same scene but with slight
movements in between each photo taken. Then you help them upload the photos to
your movie making app and play it like a slideshow, add some music and even
special effects! It’s hours of fun and actually a great educational, creative activity
for all ages.
3.
Hands off Baking day
This is
baking with a twist. The idea is to choose recipes that are simple enough for
the kids to make from scratch. This could be a no-bake lolly slice for your
younger ones or something equally simple like a box recipe of choc chip
cookies! You may need to rewrite the recipe with simpler instructions, breaking
it down for your kids to understand. I know my kids are not hugely interested
when I’m baking, unless it’s licking the bowl… but when I give them a job to
follow-through with and they have the job satisfaction at the end of the
project of something they’ve done, they are all in! Part of this activity is
going to be for us to eat, 100% non-negotiable. The other part of this will be
for them to box up some of their hard work and to give this to someone they
choose to bless. I think this could turn into quite a fun little activity where
they gain some more kitchen skills in the process.
4.
Sort out day!
One of my
‘tricks’ when the kids were littler was to have an overhaul of our toy box
system on days when they were board and
running wild. Inevitably they would start ‘helping’ me sort everything out and
then start playing with toys they forgot we had that they had found at the
bottom of the toy boxes. This is a win-win because the toys get sorted into the
right places, puzzles get done to check all the pieces are there, broken toys
get thrown out, old ones get passed on and we end up with entertained kids and
organised toy stations! Brilliant!
Another
thing I love doing and my kids love doing is moving their room around. This
usually takes a good chunk of time but it ends up being cleaned as you go (you
know what it’s like vacuuming parts of the room that were all covered in
furniture) and they also get a real kick out of a different feel for their room
for a while.
5.
Adventures
One thing I
love to do is to visit places slightly out of our usual travelling range so
it’s different but
6.
River Art
One thing I
saw done with kids which looks like hours of entertainment is a video of this
guy who balances rocks in beautifully scenic places. It sounds dull but he is
so clever at it, it’s a real art! He has been able to start selling these
photos of these incredible rock piles/ towers and this is now his job! I was
telling the kids about it and we decided in the holidays we would watch how he
does it and then go with gumboots and jackets to somewhere with rocks, and go
try this! I watched a family I follow on Youtube do this with their kids and
they actually spent ages balancing rocks on top of one another.
7.
Wild Child
Another of
one of my favourite things is to go park off somewhere in a local bush walk and
let the kids build forts and houses with sticks. The forest is such an awesome
playground and we are spoilt for choice with not needing to go far, nearly
every suburb in Auckland has a bush walk through it. The other thing to do is
go walk in the forest, we usually do Kumeu, and hunt for pinecones! They make
the best firewood and then we can go home and make a fire in our outdoor firepit!
Something we’ve adopted from American culture is to make S’mores which is too
fun when you get the fire going. Make sure you have a bag of marshmellows, some
chocolate and biscuits in the cupboard when you do your school holiday
groceries, then you can be spontaneous with these, the kids LOVE it (and the
mess stays outside)… win-win!
8.
Bike rides!
I am hugely
excited about this because as of last month, out baby is riding without
training wheels! This opens up some new adventures in the biking. One of our
favourite family activities is to go cycling together. In saying this, we don’t
do it often but it is such a fun thing to do together. The Onzo bike app is so
neat. It works lie the Lime Scooter app where you can locate and see where Onzo
bikes are, scan the barcode to enable the bikes and then use them for as long
as you like and just log out afterwards. It is really reasonable and means I
don’t have to go buy a bike which I’m not keen on doing at the moment. There
are some fantastic flat rides you can do. One of our favourites is the Auckland
Waterfront. We would start at Silo Park, kids would have a play in the awesome
park there (or a swim in Summer in the splash pool), then you can ride all
along the viaduct, across the draw bridge and to the City. It’s pretty busy on
a weekend but in the school holidays the side walk won’t be as busy and there
are so many little places to stop and grab treats. Another fun one is to park
near Mission Bay and ride around to the park and beach there.
9.
Tip-Top Ice-Cream factory Shop
Now I know
this may not be a new outing by any means to people who have lived in NZ all
their life. It probably was a place you visited as a child on school field trips?
I have to admit, I have driven past the factory shop on the Southern Motorway
near Mt Wellington countless times and never been there! I looked up the
prices, thinking it may be a nice school holiday activity, and it turns out
it’s only $8 a person and that includes taste testing and a tour of the
factory. Sounds like a novel, fun morning out and also winning that after the
tour, kids get to play at the playground there for 45 minutes.
10- Crafty Activities
I always do
some homework for the holidays. To have a great experience with 3 young,
inquisitive, ACTIVE kiddies is not for the faith-hearted. I always feel better
being prepared with a few great ideas, even if we don’t often get to them! Just
having some fun ideas to whip out if we need to focus our attention for a while
and this is especially true for Winter holidays.
Here are a
few cool ideas I thought were easy to do, didn’t require more than a few things
that were super easy to source and (most importantly) would keep the kids busy
for a while!
Cardboard Box houses
I love this
because it’s a twist on what they do already. Often they will play with boxes
but this is actually going to the next level and creating really great little
houses that they can hopefully play in for at least the day.
Make a restaurant
This is
actually one of my own personal childhood favourites. We used to make our
restaurant (which takes a fair amount of time), creating menus, table settings
and of course in the end, making the actual food. Again, for the school
holidays, doing a grocery shop mindful of the fact that food that kids can make
themselves is going to be helpful! My kids are at the age now where 2 out of 3
of them can boil 2 minute noodles and all of them can cook in the microwave, make a hotdog or a sandwitch if
they need to. The fun in this is creating a project where they can be creative,
make things and role play together in a constructive way. They’ll need to
create a menu and even could take this part of the activity to the next level
with having some old food magazines they can cut pictures out of to make a
realistic lookinh menu. They’ll be using math skills, working out how much each
person owes and of course utilising those kitchen skills.
11. Artsy pants
Sad to say,
but I visited the Art Gallery in Auckland for the first time helping with Abby’s
class trip, after being in NZ for over
10 years! It had never occurred to me to visit as an activity with kids and
certainly hadn’t occurred to me that it would be free. However, it is both! I
was so pleasantly surprised at the kids spaces there and how many interesting
things there are to look at and for the kids to do. Unfortunately art is a bit
wasted on me… I don’t know much about famous paintings and artists but it
actually made the outing all the more interesting. I would not take toddlers to
the Art Gallery, I’m just not that brave! But from pre-school age and upwards,
I absolutely think it would be a great experience for the kids. Only Abby has
been from my lot, so I’, looking forward to doing this with the kids. We may even
venture into the City on a bus and really make an excursion out of it. I also
wouldn’t plan to be there all day, it’s sort of one of those short and sweet
tours where we encourage wonderful behaviour, then let them have a little play
in the interactive area, then we gaps it and reward the fact that they didn’t
wrestle and tag each other through quiet learning spaces, with hot chocolates
in the café!
12. Coffee Stops
One of my
ways that I get through the holidays are scheduling times where we will go for
coffee and do what I want to do. I am absolutely NOT for child-cantered
parenting and I strive for our school holidays not to end up being me having to
entertain the kids. There will be chores, there will be team work to organise
and help with the running of the home and then we will have stacks of fun
together.
Some great
places to go to with kids (obviously on the North Shore of Auckland), are
listed below. I ALWAYS love to add to this list and hear about great new
places. Sometimes just grabbing a coffee in peace while the kids colour in or
play in the toy corner, even if just for 15 minutes is enough of a recharge and
re-sets us all for a productive rest of the day.
-
Dunkin
Donuts in Glenfield Mall
This one is
one of my own locals. Firstly, they have donuts. Enough said. Secondly, for
littlies, they for a $1.50 fluffy and mini donut combo which is the perfect
treat for littlies. My kids are 4, 7 and 9 and I still only get them this combo
haha! They also do great bigger donuts with coffee deals and these are my treat
when we need to break up a shopping trip out those parts! Glenfield mall
usually does really great kids activities in the school holidays so we are
usually timing our visit there with some cool kids activity that is all free.
Things like boucy castles, blow-up soccer, making your own cupcakes or art
activity. If you get in quickly with the flyer or online activity selection,
you can book your spaces ahead of time and have a couple of days free, set
activities that are always enjoyable.
- Bunnings Warehouse in Silverdale
I only realised this a bit late, but did you know that Bunnings in Silverdale does free birthday parties? It must be a marketing strategy (a clever one at that), to get parents into the store. They have a workshop next to the cafe' where they host parties, each child gets a party pack and gets to enjoy an activity of woodwork and building something like a car that they get to take home! They also do those carpentry workshops at scheduled times during the school holidays so it's worth looking that up. If you do, you can make an outing of it with coffee and morning tea at the cafe there too. They have a small indoor playground and a really reasonable cafe'. Everything is a lot cheaper than you'd pay for at another cafe' which is always something to take into account if you're planning on treating a few little mouths to something nice which can really add up when you go to cafe's that are charging $5 a muffin!
-
Little
Creatures in Hobsonville
I haven’t actually been
here but I will be visiting in the next couple of weeks. It has been recommended
has having a lovely play area and great cabinet food selection for a lunch
where the kids can entertain themselves! I’m all for the coffee stops and lunch
breaks where you could meet a friend and the kids can actually play (bonus that
it’s indoors so not weather dependant)! West is actually lots of fun to explore
too with growing residential areas meaning new playgrounds and coffee spots all
over the place!
-
The
Park House Café
This one is
actually such a neat set-up. They’re a lovely café/restaurant that is located
on the premises
-
The
Chelsea Sugar Factory
The Sugar
Factory in Northcote Point has recently been done up and it’s really lovely to
take the kids to. They have a café full of absolutely delicious food, an
interactive zone where the kids can practise baking and making sweet treats,
and a playground outside for the sunny days. It is right on the water with
stunning views of the Harbour Bridge and the City. The tours are quite pricy
but going for coffee and a play is a lovely, low-cost option and quite a novel
outing.
Some tips for these
school holidays that I sometimes nail, and other times regret not being
organised to nail…
1. Pack a lunchbox! You may be enjoying
being off lunchbox duty while school is out, but believe me, kids are firstly ALWAYS
starving in colder weather (well kids are just always starving full stop, let’s
be honest). Secondly, doing this small bit of prep at home will leave room in
the school holiday budget for lots more fun activities when you don’t eat through
it every day you’re out.
2. Plan offsite activities for just
after breakfast or just after lunch at home! This works a treat to feed the troops
before heading out. They will inevitably say they’re hungry at the sight of any
food shop on your excursion but knowing they’ve eating and going prepared with a
couple of snacks will help!
3. Keep a change of clothes and a
couple of umbrellas in your boot! There’s nothing worse than adventuring and
having to call off playing in the slightly wet playground or going for a walk,
because they don’t have a change of clothes!
4. Play-dates! These are some of the best
ideas for cold, Wintery weather! Even if you’re not usuallu extroverted enough
to invite other people out, I survived the toddler years with active little
people by creating group chats with ANYONE who had kids fairly similar in age
and we went ot each other’s house a couple of times in the holidays. Just a
change of scenery, a change in company and some good mum-company for you is
actually so refreshing!
I hope this
is helpful! Happy Winter holiday-ing everyone J Remember, the next ones are Spring
Holidays and then Summer! Stay cosy and warm, drink lots of hot chocolate with
your minis and why not set yourself a challenge to do at least one fun thing
WITH the kids a week. Whether it’s walking in the rain WITH them, getting down
on the floor and creating cardboard houses WITH them…. The kids will absolutely
love having your time and it’s amazing how those little pockets of time we
choose to play with them and connect with them, will fill up those emotional tanks
and help alleviate some of the fighting and grumpiness that can sneak in at
different times. God strength and God be with you as we countdown the last 2
weeks before the hurricanes are home!!!
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