All this with the school holidays and an overseas visitor coming to stay for three weeks – how does one entertain children and visitors on a restricted budget in Chennai?
Where to start? As the kids get older, experience tells us that (a) it pays to be prepared with lots of ideas (b) you need to get your kids on board and enthusiastic about said ideas and (c) You can enjoy the holidays so much more and find them vastly more relaxing if you are flexible about not ticking everything on my list off or pinning my hopes on doing certain things.
The Plan must be relaxing for everyone. A holiday is after all supposed to be a holiday! We know that you would like to do some touristy things for the sake of the visitor but it doesn’t have to be all go-go-go.
It doesn’t have to be completely free. The theory is much like sensible dieting or buying clothes, if you do as many free or cheap things as possible, you can afford to splash out on one or two special activities. You don’t want to be remembered by your kids as ‘Mum who wouldn’t spend any money on anything’.
The holidays do not need to be scheduled from dawn to dusk with every minute accounted for. A maximum of one activity a day will suffice and it doesn’t have to be an all day event either.
The Plan of Action
There are 14 days in the holidays, if you wrote down a list of different things you could do together, asked the kids for their input (you would often find that they would come up with great creative fun that hadn’t even crossed your mind), you could print it out and stick it on the fridge. Then when you heard the dreaded whiney-voiced 'I’m bored!' you could point them to the list and pick something off it.
Once the inspiration started to flow, you will find it hard to stop! Here are the first 21 things we came up with, what would your list include?
Costs are based on a family of four. Some activities are based in or near Chennai, but similar activities can be found in most regions.
1. Plant some veggies or herbs together. Even if you have no garden, you can have so much fun collecting recyclable pots, decorating them, filling them with potting mix and planting seeds. Our advice is to do this at the beginning of the holidays and choose something fast growing so that the kids can water them and watch them grow over the holidays. Cost Rs.40 approx.
2. Visit Dakshin Chitra. Cost Rs.90 for kids & Rs.130 for adults
3. Day at the beach. Cost Rs.0.
4. Visit MGR Flim City. Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.20 for adults
5. Rollerblading/biking in local Park. Cost Rs.0
6. Visit Children's park where the main attractions are elephants & pony rides Cost Rs.1 for kids & Rs.5 for adults plus the ride money
7.Camp-out in garden or living room depending on weather. Cost Rs.0
8. Visit Birla Planetarium & amuse your kids with science They present audio visual programmes on astronomy Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.20 for adults plus show tickets optional
9. Kids Bedroom Make-over. Every kids room needs a sort out once in a while and a new ‘look’. School holidays are the perfect opportunity. Search the op shops and internet for cheap ways to update their room. www.designdazzle.com is a great starting point for gorgeous ideas and links to other sites but even just moving things around is great fun to do with kids. Cost from Rs.0-you decide.
10. The No Particular Reason Party – invite as many of your kids friends as you like to bring a plate of finger food & a bottle. Cost Rs.0
11. Invite a playdate around. Cost Rs.0
12. Visit Valluvalar Kottam Dedicated to Thiruvalluvar, plenty of space for your kids to run and explore. Cost Rs.1 for Kids & Rs.3 for adults
13. Explore the National Art Gallery & Museum, Inject a little culture into the holidays.Built in 1906, as memorial to queen Victoria. It has bronze exhibits dating from 10th to 13th centuries and paintings of Rajasthani and Mughals of the 17th century. Established in 1857, the museum can justify its claim to being one of India’s best. There are large sectiors devoted to Archacology, Anthropology, Geology, Numismatics, Zoology and Botany along with comprehensive collections of arms and armour. There are also small parks to amuse your kids Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.15 for adults
14. Visit the snake park: Adjacent Childrens’ park is the city’s interesting snake park. The snake park houses a vast variety of reptiles, ranging from the dark deadley ‘King Cobra’ ‘Banded’ Krait’ to puff adders’, vipers, pythons and allegators. Cost Rs.1 for kids & Rs.2 for adults
15. Visit Anna Tower: This is the highest and biggest park tower in Chennai, located at Anna Nagar Park. It has cyclic stairs. Full view of the city can be seen from Top of the Tower. Cost Rs.2 for kids & Rs.3 for adults
16. Write an adventure story together. Cost Rs.0
17. Get the kids to put on a fashion show & join in. Make sure you film it or take photos for posterity, it’ll make great memories for the future. Cost Rs.0
18. Make Christmas cards together – Grandparents and friends will love the creativity of your kids. Cost Rs.0
19. Breakfast at the beach. Cost Rs.0-you decide.
20. Picnic in your local Botanic Gardens, there are always some never very far away and what is more relaxing than taking an armload of stories and a picnic rug and spending a lazy morning doing absolutely nothing much. If your kids are old enough, you may even have the luxury of being able to take your own novel and enjoy the beautiful silence. Cost Rs.0
21. Fairs & markets. Do a bit of research on the internet and find out where the spring fairs or farmers markets are happening near you and spend the morning exploring one. Cost Rs.0
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Do you have anything you can add to the list? Leave your school holiday idea here
Why not make them play doctor with the Medical Kit from Fisher-Price?
A red colour variant to the current Medical kit with updated color palette to be bright and fun for preschoolers; and we are making the stethoscope even better because now it really works!
Pieces include stethoscope, blood pressure cuff with "working" pump, odoscope, thermometer, syringe, bandage play piece and softgoods bag.
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