The Christmas summer holiday is coming, and you’d need to think up of ways to make staying at home sound adventurous to your kids. How can you sell a staycation to them when they’d be thinking of better things to do like camping, going to the beach or visiting Disneyland? Make sure your ideas are fun and filled with adventure.
Below are several family staycation ideas you can present to your kids that are also budget-friendly:
Set up a cooking a competition.
Get a “Master Chef” competition going right in your own kitchen. Let them work in teams and introduce mystery ingredients as you go along. This is the best way to let your kids test their cooking skills.
If you don’t like the idea of a contest, then you can simply get a unique ingredient from the grocery store and see what you can come up with it along with the help of your kids.
If you have a sweet tooth, you can come up with a bake-off and create a cake, cupcakes or cookies. You can even share these goodies with your neighbours and friends.
Go backyard camping.
You don’t have to go far to enjoy some camping time with your kids. Pitch a tent on your backyard, put up those camping chairs and get those sleeping bags out.
You can practice your wilderness skills together, tell scary stories, roast marshmallows over a bonfire, spot constellations at night or study local fauna and flora. There is no limit to what you can conjure with your kids during your backyard camping.
Plan a scavenger or treasure hunt.
You can set up a string of clues all around your house or even in your neighbourhood that your kids can follow. You can even invite their friends over for this. You can make up your own ingenious clues or you can check online for location ideas as well as clever rhymes.
The hunt should end with a fun prize, which can be anything from cookies or cupcakes to toys or even a chest full of gold chocolate coins. You can even make this more fun by having your kids dress up as explorers or pirates.
Make your own family carnival.
Create your family’s very own carnival and invite other family members, friends and neighbours over to join in on the fun. Serve the usual town fair food like French fries, cotton candy, popcorn and hot dogs.
Set up games you can do yourself such as cake walk, ring toss, balloon darts, corn hole and fishing hole, among others. Then, you can cap off the night with an outdoor movie, which you can make more fitting to the carnival theme by using a projector and a white sheet.
Hold your own arts and crafts class.
This is one of the perfect ways to make fun memories while creating pieces that will channel all those creativity kids have. You can make your own modelling clay using salt and flour or you can make lava lamps or slime based on YouTube tutorials.
You can also try loom weaving, tie-dye some plain-coloured shirts or make beaded bracelets and necklaces. For simpler activities, you can do some drawings with the use of sidewalk chalk, create some finger paintings or build a birdhouse using Popsicle sticks.
Whether you have little or a lot of free time with your kids, there are tons of staycation ideas you can do with them. It does not even matter if you have limited budget or a hunk of cash to spare. The most important thing about this is the fun you have together and the memories you will have that will last a lifetime.