School Holiday Activities - Our Family's To Do list!

We are so excited to officially be on school holidays! Although we don't like to "schedule" too much in, we do like to make the most of our break from school. So as a family, we make a short list of activities that we would all like to do - things that we don't usually get to do during a busy school week.

So here is our family's list of school holiday activities:

1) Groover (7yr old) - wants to watch Shrek at the movies

2) BC (4yr old) - wants to take a long bike ride to practise his two wheel bike action!

3) Both boys - hang out at the skate park!

4) Mummy - would love to take the family to Sovereign Hill in search of gold! I had great childhood memories there and would love to pass this onto our boys.

5) Daddy - bond with the boys whilst shovelling dirt/earth into a big dump bin! The boys are actually looking forward to sorting out our front yard with their Dad! And to watch England win the World Cup!

What activities have you got planned with your kids during this School Holidays?

Entertaining Pre-Schoolers on Rainy Days!

My gorgeous 4 year old Pre-Schooler loves nothing more than running around kicking a football or playing basketball in the garden. But because winter is well and truly here, we've been migrating indoors and I'm having to entertain BC within 4 walls! Not an easy task at the best of times, but we've come up with some fun Rainy Day Activities that we wanted to share with you:

1)Role Play - Pirate Fun!

We found some empty boxes and "BC" wanted to make them into Pirate Ships. Thanks to Captain Feathersword (from The Wiggles), BC has this fascination with Pirates and the way they speak! So everything begins with "Arrgggh me Hearties"!

In we jump with our Pirate Dress Ups - eye patches on, swords in hand(of course!), bandannas stuck firmly on our heads, our compass and map leading the way to our treasure island so we can hide our sack of gold! We had a lovely time and this was something that he came up with and was really proud of.

2) Indoor Cubbies

BC loves making indoor cubbies! We spread blankets over the dining table and hang them over chairs to make different rooms inside our cubby headquarters. We pop fluffy cushions down and gather "Panda Bear" and his crew to have a picnic lunch inside our little den. This is also a great spot for reading stories or just chilling out having our afternoon chat!

3) Baking our afternoon snack!

This is such a fun activity to introduce to your Pre-Schoolers. After BC chooses what to bake, he helps me by taking out all the equipment that we need e.g. scales or measuring cups, baking tins, cup cake cases, bowls etc. This is a great way for him to practise his listening skills to the instructions I give. I also ask him "what ingredients do you think we need to bake a cake?" - this will then test his memory of what we needed previously to bake a cake e.g. eggs, butter, flour etc.

We then measure the ingredients together on our cooking scales and we then reinforce concepts such as "adding more" to make it heavier and "taking off" to make it lighter. His job is to "pop" all the ingredients one by one into the Kenwood and start it up! But his favourite job is licking the bowl when we're done - this brings back great childhood memories for me and I'm glad it will for him too!

4) Playing fun games

The boys love the fact that we have our very own "Toy Shop!'. We enjoy "testing" out our ickle Kids educational toys together and have lots of fun playing different games that we may not otherwise have been able to play. These new games have just arrived at ickle Kids and they are perfect for Pre-Schoolers and for kids in Prep so BC and I sat down and played them all afternoon!

Day and Night



BC loves this game - he enjoys copying the "Day" pictures and has fun figuring out which blocks he needs to thread through the wooden holder to make the same picture as his challenge booklet. I love these unique games as they are multi-levelled and they will grow with your child.

We're not quite up to the "Night" scenes yet, but we'll get there! The "Night" scenes are pictures of the silhouettes so it does get trickier and BC will then have to figure out which block would make that shape. Click here to find out more about Day & Night

Smart Car



BC loves cars so I knew this was going to be a hit with him! There are four colourful blocks, each of which have different spots for their eyes. The aim of the game is to build the car as it's shown in the challenge booklet and only have two eyes facing the front of the car.

I then gave BC simple instructions "where do you think the red block goes?" pointing to the picture - we then talk about whether it sits in the front or the back of the car, whether the block has to lie with his eyes up, down or hidden. These are great concepts to teach Pre-Schoolers and for them to use their logic skills to determine which way round the block needs to go. Great for their spacial awareness which is so important at this age.Click here to find out more about Smart Car.

Both BC and I enjoyed staying indoors today and we kept ourselves very busy! What games or activities entertain your Pre-Schooler when it's too cold to go outside?