Get Ideas for Great Value Kids’ Play Toys & Games

You may have noticed the #Playday2016 hashtag floating around Twitter this morning and in case you were wondering it’s fairly self-explanatory. #Playday2016 is a nationwide initiative to celebrate the importance of kids play. It’s held on the first Wednesday in August every year with thousands of children participating in local community events around the country. To celebrate this important day, we thought we’d highlight a few great value kids play ideas that go can carry forward for the rest of the school holiday, be it rain or shine outside…

Indoor Activities

As easy as they are, relying on the lure of the TV/tablet/laptop screen for the entire school holidays isn’t necessarily the best idea in the world. Even if you find yourself snowed under with responsibilities, take some time out to plan a few activities for your kids to participate in. This doesn’t have to be a mammoth task and can be as easy in investing in a few craft kits that they can get on with themselves. You can use Create and Craft voucher codes to buy great value craft packs in bulk so they’ll always have something new to play with, or why not re-introduce the concept of ‘games night’ or even ‘games evening’ to the household.? In spite of their lack of screen, good board games will never go out of fashion.

Creative Play

Play can start with even the most basic of items – a pile of newspapers for example. It’s easy to make up some paste, and papier-mâché is something that older kids can get on with without supervision. You can also see if they can collect materials to start a scrapbook with, and activities like finger painting can encourage sensory development. Keeping it as simple as possible can help your children’s sense of creativity, so just let them get on with it with minimum interference. But supervise when necessary, of course! You can order basic materials such as printed paper, ribbons and different coloured tapes using The Works voucher codes, so why not start up a creative box where they can dip in when they feel the urge to create a price of artwork, or even just a big mess!

Free Outdoor Activities

During the holidays, many parents associate going out with spending lots of money, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you have a wide open space close to where you live, maybe it’s time to start planning some free outdoor activities – bring back the art of tree climbing at your local country park, building ramps on shelters using spare logs and sticks, or even go as far as building a den! It doesn’t matter that they have to leave it all behind once you leave, because they can build something else entirely new the next time, or even in the back garden if you have plenty of natural materials to hand.

Play on a Larger Scale

There’s nothing wrong with spending a bit of money on playtime every now and again, especially during the summer holidays when the occasional treat is warranted. But instead of the usual theme park visits (which can leave a huge dent in the bank balance), why not try something different? Current Red Letter Days voucher codes can save you 7% site wide on your bookings and when it comes to kids’ activities, there’s plenty of active stuff to get excited about – how about water zorbing for example? Or indoor skydiving? And let’s face it, the adults can get pretty excited at the prospect of some of these too.

#Playday2016 doesn’t have to be just for one day a year – encouraging your kids to be kids is a year-round activity. And remember, parents can have just as much fun as kids with most of these activities, so give yourself a break too!

By Anna Scott, 3rd August 2016