Heads' Tips - things to do in the summer holidays

The summer holidays are here bringing your children weeks of free time and opportunities for realxation and fun. But once the initial euphoria of freedom has faded will you be faced with those familiar refrains – “What are we doing today?” or “I’m bored”?
If you’re looking for inspiration our Heads have come up with a list of 38 Things To Do Before You Go Back To School – ideas for girls of all ages to banish the boredom and perhaps even distract them from the TV and computer for a while. Why not pick your favourites and pass them on to your daughter or stick them on the fridge door!

Workouts for the brain

• Read at least two books. Buy/borrow a book which is different from the kind you would normally read. Buy them from charity shops or borrow from the library. Remember that if you don’t use your library it might close.
• Make a chart of all the kings and queens of England in order, and find out something unusual/amusing/surprising about each one.
• Write a holiday diary or compile a scrapbook. You will really enjoy reading it in 10 years’ time. Or take a photo every day and create a collage of your summer holidays – either digitally or by hand
• Read a newspaper once a week. Try the ‘i’ (the concise version of the Independent) or The Week.
• Learn how to say a phrase such as “Please can I have a chocolate ice cream?” or “How much are those shoes?” in 5 different languages.

About town/ Out in the country

• Explore a castle or discover a museum or gallery you haven’t visited before or for a long time
• Go on a bike ride and have a picnic
• Make a den in the garden
• Organise a charity fundraising event for a cause close to your heart – or undertake a sponsored walk etc
• Organise a Treasure Hunt for your friends/younger siblings
• Work out an exercise routine
• Find out the names of any birds, flowers, trees, butterflies, sea shells etc that you come across on your adventures.
• The government recently renewed its commitment to British forests. Find your nearest forest and visit it. How old is it? What sorts of trees grow in it? What happens to the trees when they are cut down? What creatures live in it and how many can you spot on your visit? Write a post about your visit and send it to your friends.
• Explore a rock pool / go pond dipping
• Build a sand animal/sculpture
• Show someone younger than you how to do something useful such as tying their shoelaces, new dance moves, styling their hair
• Volunteer at a local charity, residential home/facility for the holidays
• Write a letter to an elderly relative or one you don’t see often

Domestic Diva activities

• Do a “random act of kindness” every week, for instance: clean the car, help an elderly neighbour or relative. Ask your family what they’d like you to do. Then stick with it and impress them
• Sort out your books into old favourites to keep, hand me downs for younger family or friends and others to charity.
• Look through your wardrobe and have a major sort out – generate some bags of old clothes for charity, and some hand me downs to pass on to friends or family.
• If you haven’t grown out of something but you’re bored by it, restyle it ! Re-use & recycle!
• Sort out your bedroom and give old toys and games to a charity or even hold a car boot sale – with your parents’ permission of course. Do this while there is loads of time on your hands and cut down the nagging during the next school year
• Learn to cook or, if you already can cook, learn to cook a new or unusual dish. In particular, for school leavers, learn to cook a meal that will be easy to share with house mates at University. (e.g. chilli, pasta etc)
• Do something creative such as sketching, textiles or jewellery making
• Find a pin board and download lots of pictures from your phone/facebook and create a picture board for your bedroom to record all the great things you did in the past academic year. Also include tickets, school play programmes, other mementoes etc.
• Grow some vegetables in a small corner of the garden or even some lettuce in a pot or window box, or and supply your family with home-grown produce!

New or forgotten activities

• Learn to play a new card game – play it with friends and family, not on-line!
• Learn how to tie 3 knots
• Learn a handicraft, such as knitting, crochet or embroidery
• Learn to play draughts and/or chess,
• Go and watch a play or a ballet or a film or an opera and write a review of it.
• Download and listen to a piece of music by each of Beethoven, Mozart and Verdi
• Learn to juggle / fly a kite / throw a frisbee
• Find out about local groups – theatre, music, dance, gym or swimming – and get signed up ahead of next term
• Do a jigsaw.
• Tackle some puzzles: sudoku, code words, crosswords
• Learn to iron (and make Mum’s day…)

With thanks to the Heads & staff at the following schools:
Bolton School (Girls’ Division), Central Newcastle High School GDST, Derby High School, Edgbaston High School for Girls, Heathfield School Pinner GDST, Leicester High School for Girls, Luckley-Oakfield School, Northampton High School GDST, Shrewsbury High School GDST, St Catherine’s School Bramley, St Dominic’s High School, St Margaret’s School Bushey, St Mary’s School Calne, Sir William Perkins’s School, The Red Maids’ School, Tudor Hall, Wimbledon High School GDST, Wychwood School