The Summer Holidays can be a stress for the best of us. The children are excited and full of beans, whilst as parents we have to come up with numerous ways to keep them entertained for six weeks. So, follow our handy guide to making a bucket list for all your adventuring needs, involving all of the family.
If you are looking for more information for helping the children cope during the summer holidays and keeping their mental health in check, take a look at our summer holiday Guide to Better Mental Health article!
What is a Bucket List?
In the simplest of terms a bucket list is a wish list. Now this wish list can contain anything and everything. It can focus on hopes and dreams, life long goals or things you’ve always wanted to do.
For our purposes The Wonderment’s Summer Holiday Bucket List is going to contain a myriad of activities, crafts, days out and adventures for us to do during the six weeks holiday.
Why Should I Make A Bucket List?
The monotony of the summer holidays can hit us all pretty fast and there is nothing worse than the constant ‘Mum (or Dad, Nan etc) I’m bored!’ In fact, when it comes to being home from school, that phrase can be not only contagious, but so irritating , that we as parents lack the motivation to come up with anything inventive.
That is exactly why we thought about planning a head, this will take the stress off of us as parents and caregivers to come up with those inspired ideas and activities on the fly. This is not only going to benefit our mental health during this period in general, but will also give us a sense of accomplishment and leave us feeling a little less pressure than we might ordinarily.
Where the kids are concerned, this idea is going to spark their imaginations, be prepared for some rather questionable and out of this world ideas. It will fill them with a sense of anticipation and wonder for the holidays and keep them interested throughout.
What’s First?
The creation. In all honesty, this will be as fun as the actual adventures you are about to embark on.
- Get your family together whether that is you and your child, parents and children, siblings, grandparents, friends, whoever you will be spending the holidays with.
- Grab some large pieces of paper and pens, pencils, crayons, stickers, magazines to cut up, craft materials…whatever you fancy for making this an exciting challenge all on its own.
- Get some ideas down – think about days out, days at home, crafts, time at the beach, a walk in the woods, reading a book, getting mucky making mud pies, building a contraption out of cardboard boxes, being pirates for the day (not real ones) or learning how to make ice cream.
- Make the list as big or small as you would like. Include things that are inexpensive, free or would need a little money. Include things at home, close to home and further afield. Your imagination is your only limit, besides the practical issues.
How Does it Work?
We have thought about this and decided there are two ways in which you can utilise the bucket list.
You’ve got your ideas from everyone and you may need to whittle them down, remove some more outlandish ones and lower expectations, but once that is done decide together on which method to use, then create a big, bright, summer vibe filled poster to stick on the wall and admire.
Method 1
Make a structured list that covers the whole of the six weeks off. Create a calendar to display it in and pop as many or as few of your adventures in as you would like each week.
We would suggest making the activities movable, use sticky notes or washi tape, this is so you can remain flexible and move them about as and when you might need to.
Method 2
Allow this bucket list to give you some spontaneity through the holidays. Get all of your ideas onto the poster and make them also movable if you want to follow up the adventures with our idea below.
You can then peruse your list when the mood strokes and select the enjoyment to be had for that day.
Once you have had a day of excitement, you can do any number of things with your removable list items, from either method –
- throw them
- create a summer diary using them
- pop them into a memory jar
- or even print out a picture from your day and pop both the activity and your photo into an album to treasure.
The images above are just a few of the things we came up with for our bucket list and a suggestion on how you could design the look! Of course there are no hard and fast rules here, let us know if you come up with a different idea to create your bucket list, we’d love to see them over on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, don’t forget to tag us! Do let us know as you complete your summer holiday bucket lists and fill us in on all the fun!
