Boredom-busting list of school holiday activities!

Never hear “I’m bored” again! Here’s our mega list of school holiday activities to do at home, and mostly without parental supervision!

I’ll be the first to admit that although this blog is called “family friends food” it’s really mostly about the food. I make no apology. However, I’m about to redress the balance ever so slightly by providing this list of school holiday activities, which most definitely falls into the “family” category.

School holiday activities

School summer holidays in 2020 and 2021 were quite unusual – instead of the usual days out, museum trips, stately home visits, play dates and weekends away, we were largely confined to our house, avoiding all social contact with other people.

We enjoyed some lovely country walks, but since most of our go-to activities were off the agenda we created this fun activity list, full of great ideas for passing the time at home.

Of course, now we can get out and about again – hooray! But that doesn’t mean there aren’t sometimes days when we just want to chill at home. That’s when this list comes into its own again!

So if you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time during the school holidays, take a look below, and I hope you’ll find a suitable activity to keep your kids busy without leaving the house, or breaking the bank!

How to use this list

There are a few ways that you can use this list. We printed it out and cut it up into individual activities, folded the slips of paper, and put them in a jar to be pulled out at random. Alternatively, you can simply stick in a pin (or your finger) and see where it lands. Or of course just choose the activity you most fancy. Use it as inspiration rather than anything prescriptive. 

Assuming your child is of school age, most of these activities can be done unsupervised, although a few require some help setting up, and occasionally participation of another person. 

I hope this list of school holiday activities is useful! If you have more activity suggestions  then please leave them in the comments. Let’s help each other to have a fun-filled school holiday!

Read

• Read a book or comic or magazine
• Explore a poem
• Learn a poem by heart
• Read a cookery book and design a themed menu – you can also create a shopping list and even cook it for your family!

Create

• Draw a picture
• Make something using hama beads
• Do origami
• Build something out of lego
• Create a necklace or bracelet using beads
• Make and decorate bunting and put it up in your room
• Do knitting or crochet
• Sew something – quilting or embroidery
• Practice handwriting or calligraphy
• Make a collage using old magazines and coloured paper
• Sculpt figures from polymer clay or air-drying clay
• Make a bouquet of paper flowers
• Write and draw a comic
• Create an “all about me” board
• Paint or draw a self-portrait
• Design a poster about someone who inspires you
• Make and decorate carnival masks
• Paint on stones or pebbles – you can put them in your garden or leave them in the park for someone to find

Go outside

• Play in the garden 
• Do skipping with a rope
• Take photographs of flowers in the garden
• Go for a walk outside (in the garden or further with a grown up)
• Go for a bike ride (with an adult)

• Build an obstacle course in the garden and time yourself completing it – how fast can you go?
• Sit and watch the birds and try to identify them
• Run 10 laps of the garden
• Find leaves/flowers/seeds etc. and press them into polymer clay to make a picture
• Blow some giant bubbles
• Find a long ribbon and do rhythmic gymnastics

Music

• Play an instrument
• Listen to a CD
• Sing along with your favourite songs

• Do karaoke – look on YouTube
• Compose a tune and try to write it down
• Make up a dance routine to music
• Sing the same song in different rooms and see how it sounds in different places

Online

• Learn a language on duolingo
• Do some coding – try Scratch if you’re new to it!
• Take a virtual museum tour  
• Research a famous person on Wikipedia
• Listen to a podcast

• Record a podcast!
• Make a family tree using a genealogy website
• Find classes on Outschool (If you use this link you get $20 off your first class and I get $20 referral credit to spend on classes for Kipper!)

Get moving inside

• Practice yoga
• Do a Joe Wicks workout or another workout from YouTube
• Build a den/blanket fort
• Do an alphabet scavenger hunt – find things around the house that start with every letter of the alphabet
• Do 10 star jumps/press ups/sit ups/lunges etc
• Build an indoor obstacle course
• Learn to juggle

Use your brain

• Do some puzzles – crosswords, sudoku, word search etc.
• Put together a jigsaw
• Do maths or science activities from a book
• Learn a new card trick
• Memorise your times tables
• Learn to solve a rubiks cube – how fast can you do it?
• Make paper planes and see how far they can fly
• Design a time capsule – what should go in it?

With someone else

• Play a board game
• Look through family photo albums
• Learn to make a cup of tea – an essential life skill!
• Do cooking or baking – see this list of 20+ school holiday recipes for inspiration
• Make challah 

Writing

• Write a letter or a postcard to a friend
• Make up a story
• Write a diary entry
• Create a poem or song
• Write a monologue and perform it
• Write a play to perform with a friend

Don’t forget to share your own school holiday activity ideas in the comments.

Download the full school holiday activity list as a pdf here.