1) Soft play centre 

Bank holiday Monday was a wash out. We headed to Eddie Catz in Wimbledon, South London – a soft play centre that caters for babies, toddlers and children up to about 12 years old. It offers classes and workshops under the ‘edutainment’ umbrella, but we were there purely for the kids to release plenty of energy, and boy did they. Some soft play venues that are aimed at that sort of age spectrum can be extortionate. I find Eddie Catz reasonably-priced. The facilities are good and the food went down very well, and again was reasonably-priced. All three loved the sizeable main play frame with all its scramble nets, tubes, slides etc, but my husband started getting a bit nervous about the two-year-olds disappearing out of reach and sight and took them to the tamer toddlers’ frame. The disco room was also a big hit.

2) Designed a Father’s Day mug

Last year’s effort (complete with wear and tear). It changes colour with hot liquid!

It has become a bit of a custom: the personalised photo Father’s Day mug. Each year for Father’s Day we design a mug for my husband using some of the family photos from the last year. It’s lovely to go through the year’s photos together and choose which ones to include. It’s really easy to do and there are loads of different options. We do get him another gift/s in addition, but my eldest likes giving this present the most (mainly because she loves photos of herself).

3) Baked and decorated biscuits 

Look at the concentration

I found the easiest recipe for biscuits ever on Netmums; it consisted of three ingredients (though I made it my own by adding Vanilla Essence) and all three girls were able to get stuck in with the creaming, mixing and kneading. Sofia had been bought Eddingtons Cinderella Cookie Cutters, so we used those. Like their older sister, the younger two are obsessed with anything fairytale and princess-related (bleugh!) so these caused much excitement. I let them all watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates whilst they baked and cooled, so it was a dream come true for them. I’d bought some squeezy tubes of coloured icing, so much time was spent decorating them. Then after dinner they ate them.

4) Arts and crafts 

I gave our arts and crafts box a Spring clean. Then doing our grocery shop (I’d say weekly shop, but I spend what seems like half of my week in the supermarket), I discovered that Sainsbury’s stocks loads of really well-priced arts and crafts items and sets. I bought sticky shapes for collages, paintbrushes and foam paint brushes, fancy pipe cleaners and a great canvas with a fairy design with paints and sparkly bits included for Sofia. The girls didn’t fight or moan for ages, so a definite hit and Sofia was super proud of her artwork, so we put it on display.

Sofia’s handiwork

5) Half-term play dates 

The perennial favourite: Simple, but effective. We went to someone else’s house armed with both healthy snacks and treats. The change of scenery and company works wonders.

The weather’s shaping up to be ok, so we’re off to Godstone Farm tomorrow… and here we are:

That poor rabbit!

The post Rainy half-term entertainment ideas appeared first on The Parent Social.