How to prepare for the summer school holidays

Last Updated on April 1, 2024

The summer school holidays are long, and for many of us the best way to get through them as patient and as sane as possible is to prepare for the summer school holidays as early as possible.

If you’d like to approach the summer school holiday period as prepared as can be, then here are some ways that you can get organised for them as early as now.

How to prepare for the summer school holidays

Here are some ways that you can start to get organised for the summer break, to avoid any stress or anxiety that you may feel towards them.

Set a budget

Setting a budget for how much you want to spend on activities, school holiday camps, and days out can help you decide what activities you can and can’t do, and how much you want to allocate to different activities.

You may decide to set a budget for the entire summer school holiday period, or perhaps a weekly or daily budget, or maybe a budget per activity.

Set some expectations

Setting expectations on how you want the summer school holidays to look for your family, and what you’d like to do to entertain your kids over summer is a great way to stop yourself falling into the comparison trap, and doing things you don’t want to, or doing things because other families are doing them.

Setting expectations means thinking about what you want your family’s summer break to look like, and not worrying about what others are doing, and comparing your break to theirs.

For example, this may mean setting the expectations that your summer break will be about days out at the park, home days, and maybe one or two days at an attraction and that’s it.

Doing this means you’ll do what’s right for you and your family, and you’ll have a great time doing it, instead of comparing your summer break to other families and feeling like you’re not doing, or spending enough.

Make a list of activities

Making a list of activities is my favourite way to prepare for the summer school holidays.

It involves making a list of activities that you’d like to do over the summer break, saving you time by not having to think of activities each day.

Once you have your activity list, which your kids can add to as well, you could divide the list by categories, such as:

• At home
• Free
• Low cost
• Expensive

Once finished, you can start to add activities to your paper or digital calendar, and you can easily change your activities based on the weather.

For example, if it ends up raining on a day you want to go to the park, you may decide to choose one of the at home activities on that day instead.

Book activities

One of the benefits of making a list of activities is that you can book any activities that require pre booking in advance before they sell out.

Book appointments

The summer break is a great time to book doctor, dentist, eye, or other appointments that you have trouble booking during school hours.

It’s not the most fun summer holiday activity, but it’s something that will definitely make life easier for you once school’s back.

Plan your days

This is another one of my favourite ways to prepare for the summer school holidays, which is to plan your days as much as possible in advance.

This means adding any activities from your activity list, pre organised commitments, work schedules, and anything else you have to do over the break onto your calendar as soon as you can.

Doing this means that you can see what days you have left to make plans for, or when you need to organise childcare.

Plan home days

Summer holidays can get expensive, and one way to keep costs down is to plan some home days.

It can be hard staying at home with kids, but there are many activities you can do with kids at home, as well as with toddlers at home that are low cost or free, and having home days teaches your children that they don’t have to go out to keep busy.

Schedule time for yourself

School holidays are stressful and demand a lot of our time, and physical and mental resources.

There’s never ending requests to do things, make things, and buy things, so taking time out for yourself is an important way to avoid mum burnout during the holidays.

Stock up on art supplies

Getting the arts and crafts out is a great at home activity, and having art supplies on hand will enable you to do this activity as often as you can.

Some art supplies that you may like to stock up on include:

• Beads
• Feathers
• Glitter
• Glue
• Googly eyes
• Outdoor chalk
• Paint and paintbrushes
• Paper
• Pens, pencils, markers, crayons
• Pom poms
• Recycled products
• Scissors

If you’d like some more art supply ideas, here is a comprehensive Baker Ross art supplies list

Stock up on snacks

There’s something about the summer holidays that makes kids super hungry, and they seem to exist on snacks.

If like my kids your kids also love to snack over the holidays, then one of the best things you can do to prepare for the summer school holidays is stock up on some road trip snacks for kids, healthy kids snacks to take on the go and also some snacks for mums so we’re not hungry as well.

Stock up on travel activity pack supplies

Another thing to stock up on are travel activity pack supplies.

A travel activity pack is a pack your kids have with them during a journey, or even at a restaurant, filled with things to keep them busy.

If you’d like to know more about what a travel activity pack is, and what you can put in one, here’s a post on how to make a kids travel activity pack.

Stock up on back to school supplies

I know, it feels weird thinking about back to school in the midst of thinking about summer school holidays, but stocking up on back to school supplies will ease the stress that comes with doing it at the end of the summer holidays, and finding out back to school stock has run out.

The best way to stock up for back to school supplies is to write a list for anything your children need, and then get what they do have ready for back to school, such as sharpening their pencils, and labelling clothing, lunchboxes, and water bottles.

Set a summer school holiday routine

Setting a summer school holiday routine allows your children to know what to expect during this time, and what activities may be happening next.

Some things you may like to consider include:

• Do you want your children to go to bed and wake up the same time as school days, or are you happy to make the times later?
• What time do you want to go out during the days?
• What times will mealtimes be?

If you do things differently over the summer school holidays, a week before school starts get your children back into their school day routine so their adjustment for back to school isn’t hard.

Get some educational resources

Six weeks is a long time to be off school, and it can be hard to get your children back into an education state of mind.

Getting them some educational resources that they can do during the summer break is a great way to keep them engaged in what they’re learning at school, and to keep their mind ticking away.

These resources don’t have to be structured in the same way your child would learn at school, in fact the more non school like the better, so puzzle books, English or Maths books according the stage they’re at, or even setting reading challenges are great ways to keep your children engaged in school related things when they’re not there.

Don’t feel guilty about screen time

If there are days when your kids are on their screens, try not to feel guilty.

The summer school holidays are long, and everyone needs downtime. Set screen time limits if you want to, and if you don’t then that’s totally fine.

Structure your working days

If you’ll be working during the summer school holidays, work out when you need to work, and organise things for your children to do during those times.

Doing this early means you can book your children into school holiday camps before they book out, organise childcare if needed, and perhaps rearrange your work day so you work before the kids wake up, or after they go to bed.

What do you do to prepare for the summer school holidays?