24 Jul School Holidays

Well, the school holidays are here for 2023, so if you’re looking for some inspiration these holidays whether it be for sustainable days out, picnic ideas or some good old crafting at home then look no further, we want to help you create memories sustainably.

DAYS OUT and ACTIVITIES

It’s all about staycations this year which means we’re all staying a bit more local than usual, doing our bit to reduce our carbon footprints without even noticing! Day trips are a great way to get out and about with the whole family without having to travel too far, reducing your footprint even further.

If you’re looking for a fun packed day out with a lower impact on our planet then here are some places that we’ve tried and love!

Eden project, Cornwall

Situated in the heart of Cornwall, The Eden Project is a global garden which enables you to experience the natural world as you’ve never seen it before, with huge biomes where you can explore the world’s largest indoor rainforest and explore a tree top canopy walkway. Find places to rest, play and eat, and you’ll come away with inspiring ideas on how to care for the planet when you get home.

Williams Den, East Yorkshire

William’s Den is a fantastic family attraction with natural play and fun galore – with outdoor climbing structures made from natural materials, sand and water to woodland walks and even mud kitchens. There is also a unique indoor den-based play area with a stream, stepping stones, a rainmaker and sand area, a day is almost not enough here! If you get a little peckish then grab yourself some locally sourced homemade treats from their café on site.

NATURE RESERVES

How about heading to your local nature reserve, RSPB site or RHS garden? Not only are these locations stunning, the fee or donation you pay to go in will be supporting the great work these charities do in maintaining natural habitat for animal species and plants. Often with a mixture of outdoor and indoor activities, a cafe if you’d prefer not to pack a picnic and parking, what’s not to love about a day out in the Great British outdoors.

Here’s a few of our favourites:

Cliffe House | Kirklees Council

RHS Garden Harlow Carr | Events & attractions in Harrogate, Yorkshire / RHS Gardening

For coastal gems, try RSPB South Stack, Anglessey or RSPB Bempton Cliffs, Yorkshire

RSPB Membership

THE PARK RUN

For the more active out there why not join your local Park Run? Run by volunteers, this free event could be a weekly healthy competition between you and your little runners. Set your own PB or just have fun in a well set up local event. Perhaps each week of the holidays you take a short journey to a different park? Let your little ones help you choose which they’d like to visit, get google maps out or OS if you have one and have a look at where you can go together. Create a tracker chart or map of where you’ve visited and plot out how far you’ve run as you go.

You need to register and there’s a small fee but it’s a quick and simple online form and once you’re registered, you’re good to go at Park Run events all over the world!!

PICNICS

Day tripping in the school holidays can become expensive when you add in entrance fees and feeding your hungry little ones so why not keep the costs down and pack a picnic, take a look at our tips for creating more sustainable picnics.

ARTS and CRAFTS

Arts and crafts are an excellent and often rainy-day choice for during the school holidays. Clearing the kitchen table and making space for your little one’s creative minds to get busy can also be a time when we think about recycling or environmentally friendly choices.

Building up a stock of crafting goodies can take a little while. Consider setting up a few tubs or boxes in the back of your cupboard and as you use your daily household items pop them away until you’re ready to get creative!

Here’s some ideas of what to keep hold of:

Bottle corks, milk bottle tops, paper stuffing from parcel deliveries, cardboard boxes, toilet roll tubes, bubble wrap, washing up liquid containers (who doesn’t remember making a space shuttle out of one of these?!

When you’re out and about, look at what you could collect to take home and craft with:

Pinecones, conkers, leaves large or small, seeds, feathers………….nature is an endless source of bits and pieces that can be used for decoration! Why not take photos of interesting patterns such as tree bark, shadows, a cool bug and use these as inspiration when you get home.

Here’s just a couple of ideas depending on how much time you have:

BUG HOUSE

This will attract bugs to your garden and support pollination. Plus, your little ones will love seeing who moves in and watching their comings and goings. Some off cuts of wood, a few nails and a bamboo cane cut into short lengths is all you need to make a homemade hotel for insects.

MINIATURE GARDEN

If you’re green fingered and enjoy planting why not let your little ones plant their own.

Give them their own medium to large plant pot and stock of compost. Let them choose a few seeds and plant them, maybe you have a few cuttings that they can use too. Let them design their pot as you would a garden on a miniature scale. They can watch it grow and learn to care for their pot alongside you as you do your garden, providing water and weeding whenever they need to.

Who knows it may even attract fairies!

FLOWER PRESSING

Collect flowers from your garden and press them to immortalise them into delicate beauties. Making your own flower press can be simple and keeping an eye on the process is fun and shows little one’s patience, good things come to those who wait.

Here’s what you’ll need.

• Two square, flat pieces of wood of plywood.
• 4 long screws and 4 wing nuts.
• Thin cardboard and paper
• Scissors and a drill.
• Anything that you like to decorate your finished flower press.

1. Mark each corner of the square wood pieces where you will drill the holes. Approximately two centimetres from each corner.
2. Carefully drill a hole in each corner or both pieces of wood.
3. Meanwhile ask your child to neatly cut out several square of cardboard and cut out twice as many pieces of paper. The sheets of cardboard and paper need to be small enough to lay on top of the piece of wood without covering the holes.
4. Push the screw upwards through the four holes of one of the pieces of wood.
5. Lay a sheet of cardboard on top of the wood. Then add two layers of paper. Repeat until you’ve used all your sheets.
6. Thread the screws through the second piece of wood and fasten with the wing nuts.
7. Let the search for flowers begin!!! When you’ve found them carefully unscrew the nuts and lay a flower between each layer of paper. Put the press back together and fasten the nuts tightly.
8. All you have to do now is wait.

BAKING

A kitchen classic and something that doesn’t need to be fancy to be fun! With so much inspiration out there at the moment, thank you Great British Bake Off! All you need is to google a recipe, pick up your ingredients and begin creating! It’s so much fun to do together and kids get to see the process of raw ingredients being transformed into a delicious, creative treat. Don’t worry of you’re not a seasoned baker, your child isn’t either. Why not learn together?

There are books and online videos to help you along the way and even prepacked kits with all the ingredients and instructions you need.

We hope you’ve been able to take some inspiration for these school holidays, getting the kids involved and making sustainability fun for all the family is a great way to make your kids more aware of helping our planet, check out some more fun ideas and tips here.