Entertain the kids this half term

Spring half term: Is it a time for all the family to come together, or a long, frequently wet week during which your kids demand to be entertained?

All too often it can feel like the latter, and while teachers take a well-earned break from the classroom, your role as a parent is to find fun and stimulating activities for your children to do.

Countless websites and blogs will suggest (as if you hadn’t already thought of it) to take a day out to a safari park or hit the cinema.

This is a quick guide to a few alternative projects you can do that won’t break the bank and are just that bit different.

Involving children in anything creative tends to be a great antidote to boredom, but being able to taste the finished product is even better.Bake

Baking needn’t be the complex, like it is on the Great British Bake Off; instead there are plenty of recip

es that parents and children can easily learn together for cakes, biscuits and bread.

Sew

Sewing has become an increasingly popular hobby for children in the last few years.

The recession and the growing ‘make do and mend’ culture in Britain has made thrifty solutions and

natural creativity a really enjoyable activity for children.

Even if you don’t have any needle craft skills yourself, finding patterns, material, needle and thread and even a cheap sewing machine is quite easy and can mean hours of concentration and enjoyment for your kids.

Grow

One way of involving your children away from the television and outside during the half term holiday is

to involve them in a garden or allotment project.

Creating a vegetable patch, raised flower beds, planting fruit trees or bushes, or planting a small herb garden – these are all perfect activities for the early spring in the gardening calendar.

By the summer time yo

u will be able to see the rewards of your efforts and your children will be able to enjoy seeing the garden blossom.

And then there is everything else…

Of course, the above list of holistic activities might not work and your children might well roll their eyes at the sound of baking or sewing. There really is no accounting for taste sometimes.

In which case it is important not to ignore the standard solutions of day trips to local attractions such as the cinema, leisure centre’s or the ice rink.

Your children are, of course, your toughest audience and, though you love them dearly, they are often difficult to please.

If you are looking after them this half term and want to make sure that they are not only entertained now, but that you are providing for their future entertainment by investing effectively, you might want to access some advice from a professional financial adviser.

THE VALUE OF INVESTMENTS AND INCOME FROM THEM MAY GO DOWN. YOU MAY NOT GET BACK THE ORIGINAL AMOUNT INVESTED