Planning for the Holidays With Your Children

I wrote quite some time ago about planning for our half term and end of term breaks in a way that makes the most of our time off of school or work but also includes the children in the process.  The example below was where I let the kids fill the activities out in the grid themselves.

This Easter holiday, I somehow ended up with two whole weeks of holidays with the kids.  The timing could not have been better as the last few weeks at work have been so intense and frantic that I was starting to feel a little worn down.  I wanted to make the most of them to catch up with housework, my to-do list, get some rest and me-time and to do some fun things with the kids.

My first step was to collect all of the information I needed.  Most of the brochures below are from our local library and some from trips that Little Lady has kept for her travel journal.  I also had lists and notes lying around in the back of my organiser.

When I had a quiet moment at my mums, I laid everything out on her kitchen table and made a list of all the places that we could go.

Then I plotted out the days out on a piece of paper with the weather forecast next to each day.  I used my organiser to add any activities or events that we were already committed to, such as sister’s circle, jumuah prayers and plans with family. 

The blue stars below are where my husband has said that he is not available to take us out, usually because he has a job booked.

Once it was clear when our free time was, I asked the kids to go through the lists of places and make some sensible suggestions about where they would like to go and things they would like to do at home (baking, painting, crafts, computer time).

You can find more suggestions for activities in this post here.