What is in this guide
Here is a complete week of school holidays that costs nothing, assumes no bookings, and does not require you to have planned it in advance.
Two rules make it work, and they are the reason most holiday plans fail without them.
One thing a day, not three. A single anchor activity, ideally in the morning, and the rest of the day left alone. Three planned activities a day is how a parent reaches Thursday unable to speak.
One day with nothing in it, on purpose. Not a day where the plan failed. A day where the plan is nothing. Children need it and so do you, and if it is scheduled you stop feeling like the week is going badly.
Everything below assumes ordinary weather. The substitutions for a 39 degree day and for rain are at the end, because in an Australian holiday week you will need at least one.
Monday: get out early
The anchor: a park, playground or beach, out of the house by nine.
Monday sets the tone for the week and the trap is starting slowly. A morning outing on day one makes the rest of the week feel like a holiday rather than a long weekend that got out of hand. Pack food, because a day out with food packed costs nothing and the same day without it costs sixty dollars.
Choose somewhere twenty minutes away rather than an hour. The drive is not the activity.
The rest of the day: home, quiet, and an early night. Nobody sleeps well on the first night of holidays.
Tuesday: the library
The anchor: your local library branch, mid-morning.
Libraries run the most reliable free programming in the country through every holiday period, and even with no session on, a branch visit is an hour of genuine entertainment plus a stack of books that covers several later afternoons.
Two things to do while you are there: get a card for any child who does not have one, and check the branch noticeboard and website for the rest of the holidays. This is where you find the free sessions you did not know existed.
The rest of the day: reading the haul, which will actually happen on the day it comes home and never again with the same enthusiasm.
Wednesday: the nothing day
The anchor: none. Deliberately.
Pyjamas until eleven. No outing. No craft. No drive. The backyard, the lounge room floor, whatever they invent.
This is the most important day of the week and the hardest one for a parent to allow. Children who have been busy for two days will complain for about forty minutes and then start playing properly for the first time all week. That is the entire point, and it is why the day is scheduled rather than accidental.
If you need somewhere to point them, backyard activities that cost nothing has twenty-one options that need nothing bought, and the long-running ones on that list are what a nothing day is for.
Thursday: the long walk
The anchor: a walking track, bike path, foreshore or bush trail, in the morning.
Choose distance by the youngest walker rather than the oldest, and expect roughly a kilometre per year of age as a rough upper limit for an unenthusiastic child on a flat track. Take more water than seems necessary, and a snack for the turnaround point, which is the standard technique for getting a tired child back to the car.
National park entry arrangements vary by state and by park, and many are free while some charge a vehicle fee. Check the relevant state parks authority before you drive, and note that council reserves and foreshore paths are almost always free.
The rest of the day: everyone will be tired, which is the objective.
Friday: the making day
The anchor: cooking or building something at home, together, all morning.
Cooking is the best value activity in this entire week because it is free, it lasts two hours, it produces something real and it is a genuine skill. Pick something that involves measuring, mixing and waiting: bread, scones, biscuits, pizza dough, pasta sauce.
If cooking is not on, build something instead. A cubby, a fort, a repair job on something broken.
The rest of the day: eating the result.
Saturday: the social day
The anchor: another family, at a park or at someone’s house.
Two families at a park is the single highest value free activity in the week, because the children entertain each other and the adults get a conversation. Organise it on Wednesday, not Saturday morning.
Bring food to share and the whole thing costs nothing.
Sunday: reset
The anchor: washing, the week ahead, and one job each.
Not glamorous, and it is the day that makes next week possible. Sort the washing, do the shop, and get everyone to do one real job.
Real jobs work better than invented ones with children of every age. A child who has actually washed the car or weeded a garden bed is more satisfied than one who has done a craft activity designed to fill time, and they can tell the difference.
Leave the afternoon empty so the week ends slowly.
When it is 39 degrees
Substitute for any outdoor anchor: an air-conditioned library or shopping centre in the middle of the day, water play at home early or late, or an indoor cinema-style setup with the blinds down.
Shift everything outdoors to before about ten or after about four, and treat the middle of the day as indoor time rather than trying to push through it. Hats, shirts and sunscreen apply to every outdoor item above.
When it rains all week
Substitute in this order: library, indoor building, cooking, a wet walk in gumboots which is genuinely fine and often the best day of the week, and a home cinema afternoon.
The one thing not to do is cancel the day and fill it with screens by default, because a wet week spent entirely indoors on devices ends with everyone in a worse mood than a wet week with two hours of something else in it.
Which day usually goes wrong
Thursday. By Thursday the novelty is gone, everyone is tired, and the walk gets resistance at the front door.
Two things help. Do it earlier in the day than feels necessary, and give the child a job for the walk: the map, the water, the dog, the camera. Resistance drops noticeably when a child has a role rather than an instruction.
Next: free things to do with kids these school holidays covers finding the booked free sessions in your area, backyard activities that cost nothing fills the nothing day, and what to pack for a family camping trip covers the week you do leave home.
The one-page family week
One printable page that holds the whole week: meals, school, activities and who is doing the pickup. Free, and we send one useful email a week.
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