Half-Term indoor and outdoor ideas from Louise Bruce

My name is Louise Bruce, and I used to love doing special 'themed' days for the kids when they were younger.

I would ask them to look through a book about different countries around the world and choose a country each. Then, say one of them chose Italy, on the 'Italy day' we would cook food from the country, draw or paint the flag, dress up in Itailan traditional clothes (or as near as the dressing up box would let us!...) and generally learn a bit about the country. My kids loved doing this. Mainly I think because they got to choose the country but also because, as we know, kids just want their parents to spend time with them, focussing on them, and this ticked all those boxes nicely. I think we learnt a few words from the language too. Aged 4-8

During other half terms, when they got older, I would buy cheap frames from £1 shops and we would decorate them and take a photo, print it out and put it in the frame.

I also used to buy cheap oil painting sets, give them books of famous works of art and ask them to copy one each. My 19 yr old still has her pic of Marilyn Monroe in her room and my son did a caricature of Maggie Thatcher!

Another year I set them the task of teaching the dogs a trick (yes, you need one dog per child!) I gave them some cheap cut up ham, gave them ready printed out instructions I had got from the internet on how to teach basic commands, and set them too it. Brilliant fun. Dogs so stuffed with ham after an hour they gave up but still good fun!

With thanks to Louise Bruce who owns a PR agency in Cheltenham, www.bigredboxpr.com