15 cheap and free summer school holiday activities

Last Updated on April 1, 2024

The summer school holidays are nearly upon us, and if we’re not prepared for summer by having a list of cheap and free summer school holiday activities we can refer to, it can be an expensive time.

If you’d like to minimise the amount you spend during the summer break, but would still like to have fun, then here are 15 cheap and free summer school holiday activities that you may like to do during the very long summer holiday period.

English Heritage

English Heritage has over 400 historic places to visit including monasteries, castles, manor houses, abbeys, gardens, and more.

Some sites are free to enter, but many require a cost of admission, which if you book online you can save 10% off the admission price.

You can also become an English Heritage member, where family membership costs from £69 per year, and sometimes there’s discounts on membership fees when you visit the English Heritage website.

National Trust

Visiting a National Trust property or garden is something we do most Sundays, and it’s always a great day out, especially if we bring a picnic, which saves us from buying food.

You can get National Trust membership, which costs £12.20 per month for a family of four.

If you’d prefer to visit a National Trust property as a one off and are visiting with family or friends who are members, they can take kids under 5 with them for free, so all you have to pay for is your admission price.

Woodland Trust

Visiting Woodland Trust is a free summer school holiday activity, where kids can build dens, spot wildlife, have a picnic, or go for a woodland walk.

There is an option to purchase Woodland Trust membership, one of the benefits of this is that kids receive a Nature Detectives Membership, giving them wildlife activities, stickers, posters, seasonal activity packs, and more.

Garden Centres

Many garden centres have reptile areas and aquariums that you can walk through for free, others have soft plays that are cheaper to enter than larger soft play centres, and many have school holiday activities as well.

Playgrounds

Playgrounds are a free summer school holiday activity that’s perfect for the warm summer weather, and if there’s ducks there you could spend some time feeding them some duck friendly food.

Water play

On hot days there’s nothing better than a bit of water play to keep everyone cool.

If this is something you’d like to do, you could have water fights with water guns, or water balloons, blow bubbles, or visit a park that has a splash zone.

Eating out

Eating out can be expensive, but over the summer school holidays there are many restaurants and cafés that allow kids to eat for free, or from as little as £1.

Some of these include:

• Bills Restaurant
• Morrisons Café
• Yo Sushi!
• Bella Italia

Cinemas

During the school holidays many cinemas offer reduced family tickets, some of these include:

• Vue Cinemas
• Cineworld
• Odeon

Each of these cinemas offer adult and kids tickets from £2.49, and if you bring your own snacks and drinks with you you’ll save on buying cinema food.

Tesco Clubcard

Tesco Clubcard allows you to exchange points for vouchers for days out to theme parks, zoos, aquariums, cinemas, TV subscriptions, restaurants, and more.

Museums

Many museums are free to enter, including the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, or some like the London Transport Museum charge for an annual pass, which means you can enter the museum for free for up to a year.

Libraries

Libraries often have free activities to keep kids entertained over summer, including story telling sessions, arts and crafts, and more.

If you live in the UK find your local library to see what summer school holiday activities they run.

Arts and crafts

Setting up a summer arts and crafts station at home is a free summer school holiday activity you can do.

If you don’t have lots of arts and crafts supplies, you could just get out some pencils and colouring books, or colouring sheets you find online, or do outside drawing with chalk.

Alternatively, if you like the idea of arts and crafts but would prefer the mess to be elsewhere, some retailers like Hobbycraft run free or low cost craft sessions for kids.

Baking

Baking is a great activity you can do at home, that has the added benefit of making something you can all enjoy afterwards, and it can even become a summer family tradition.

If baking is something you’d like to do over summer, then here are 20 easy baking recipes for kids.

Home days

Home days are a free summer school holiday activity that you can do, some of the things that can be done at home include:

• Board and card games
• Building things with magnetic tiles
• Dance parties
• Movie afternoons
• Outdoor obstacle course
• Put on a play
• Puzzles
• Scavenger hunt

For more ideas visit 50 indoor activities for kids.

Reading challenges

There are many summer reading challenges book loving kids can participate in, including the Summer Reading Challenge UK, which has rewards kids get once they reach a certain book number, and non reading activities they can do as well.

What activities do your kids enjoy over the summer school holidays?