I was recently chatting to a fellow mum who was looking into a local vacation care programs to avoid the constant "I'm bored"/"There's nothing to do" remarks from her kids during the two week school holiday and was astounded at how much cost was involved! The first one she had looked into was run by the local YMCA and cost $60 per child per day (worked out to be $1,200 for her two for the entire program) but included transport, admission/activities and morning/afternoon tea. The second was run by the local council and the price varied depending on the activity that was planned for the day ($15 for a day where they played basketball at council basketball courts or visited local skateparks, $30 for days where they went to sizzlers, timezone and the movies or ten pin bowling and ice skating) with some including lunch and/or snacks but some asking kids to byo food.
I was astounded to find that other mums whose kids went to school with ours happily paid for their kids to participate in programs similar to these everyday for the whole two week period! Thats the equivalent to provide our family with fuel and groceries for a whole fortnight! So i decided to write a post showing mums just how affordable school holidays can be.
*i understand that some parents do actually pay this amount in order to get a bit of 'time off' from the kids or have no other alternative as they may work, so this post may not apply to every family.*
The secret to having exciting, inexpensive fun in the school holidays is RESEARCH! My favourites are
Buggy Buddys,
Perth City and
Kidspot, but often there are events held at local libraries and shopping centres too. These past school holidays (july) we all went out for two big days where i spent time bonding with lexi doing reasonably priced activities. In this post i'll write about our most epic of the two days.
I had seen on a few parent pages on Facebook about an event in the city called "Snowland" which was a free family event put on as a publicity stunt by the City of Perth. It was followed by a great deal of controversy though because of the central location, the vast age appropriate range and the fact of it being free, the tickets were highly sought after. On the first day people began lining up at 8.30am, tickets were released at 9am and then were sold out by 10.30 am. From memory the sessions ran every half hour from 10am until 4pm and each session catered for 90 people.
After hearing about how quickly the sessions had filled up i decided that it would be best to get to the city as early as possible. After all i wouldn't want to go all the way to the city, promising my little girl an amazing experience, just to have to disappoint her when the tickets are all "sold out". I planned more than just the "Snowland" experience as there were quite a few free/cheap activities being put on in the city and being the fact that it takes us 2 hours on public transport to get into the city, i thought it better to make one big day as opposed to several half day trips.
We put on our cold weather gear, packed our bags and walked down to the bus stop at a very brisk 6.30am when it was still very dark. We took the bus to the nearest train station and the train straight into the city. We got in line for our "Snowland" tickets at 8.30am and lucky we did as obviously other families had also heard the controversy and had the idea to get there early too. There were about 100 people in front of us in the line, the first ones being in line since 6.30am. Luckily we still managed to get ticket for the 11am show so we had a little time to grab a quick breaky, do a nappy and nursing stop in the change room and then put on mittens, beanies, jumpers and scarves on before heading to the Snowland.
While we were lining up (the ticket had instructions to be at the door 10 minutes before the session time) the City Of Perth (COP) had paid a few teenagers to dress up and walk along the line to amuse the kids by having their photos taken. Depending on the age of the kids, some got quite restless during the wait but most were pretty good.
When we were finally allowed thru the doors you wandered along a path that was lined with fake snow, christmas trees lit which fairy lights and plush arctic and christmas themed animals. There was christmas themed music playing and a machine that blew "snow' into the air, which appeared to be the bubble foam that dishwashing liquid makes in your kitchen sink. At the end of the long winding path was another set of doors which lead to the main attraction. The massive cold room had four stations in it where there were a host of activities.
Sledding was the first activity Lexi wanted to try so we did that several times before we moved over to making a snowman.... which sounds a lot more fun than it was. the kids were given a few handfuls of ice to basically make two snowballs and try to tack them in a snowman-like fashion. I was quite glad lexi and i had brought gloves while doing thins one! Miss Lexi was extremely proud of this one.
we also threw some snowballs into a snowman cut out's tummy and then took some gorgeous photos with the backdrop that the City of perth had supplied. With gorgeous christmas trees, the lake snow and the rosey red nose and cheeks you get from the cold, it really made the photos seem so real!'
After leaving the City of perth snow land we headed to the Roc candy shop where kids could make their own lolly pop for $10. not too expensive to keep her entertained PLUS she got a free lolly at the end hahaha. they could choose what colours to make then would roll, twist and flatten the lolly before popping the stick in and decorating it with some facial features
Next up was our ice-skating session in which mummy fell flat on her back and got extremely wet... maybe i should have used Lexi's penguin skating aid more!
The last thing we did before heading home was to check out the dinosaur exhibit at the museum of western Australia. I had packed lexi lots of dinosaur snacks that she ate on the walk there; dino shaped sandwiches, dino biscuits, dino themed chess and she had it all packed in her dino bag i'd brought especially for her for the occasion. so we made a lot of fun with the day. It was so fantastic! the had computer motorised dinosaurs with motion sensors that would move or growl when you walked past, heaps of cheap and free activities for kids, including dress ups or colouring in a mask.
Lexi absolutely adored posing with the life size dinosaurs out the front of the museum and we made lots of conversations then, and whilst we were walking thru the exhibit about what dinosaur we wanted to be, or why do we think dinos died and such to keep her interested and paying attention.
All in all i probably only spent $50 for food, transport, tickets, etc for the day and as i explained to Lexi, we were going to have one big exciting day for the school holidays instead of lots of pointless little day trips. i enjoyed my special day bonding with my gorgeous little girl; we had loads of fun, learned a heap, talked a lot and strengthened our amazing mother daughter bond... i much prefer that than paying a ridiculous amount to a complete stranger to take my child away from me anyway. I love our mummy daughter dates, and they don't have to be expensive either. A child's love costs nothing if that's is the way you raise them to be.
