By Kate Hodges
08th February 2023
EVENTS GET OUT AND ABOUT
The National Trust’s half-term events include embarking on a knight’s quest at Bodiam in Sussex, listening to gruesome tales from history at Sutton Hoo, finding out about beavers at Studland in Dorset, or night hiking at Sheringham. Find an event near you here.
The WWT preserves the wetland’s natural habitat in the heart of London. This half-term, there’s also a series of family adventures to enjoy, including a chance to enjoy the magic of mud at Mudfest, the North West Puddle Jumping Championships and family birdwatching at The Big Hideout. Find out more here.
Or fire up your family’s imagination with English Heritage as their sites come alive this week. Join characters from the past for historical hijinks and hands-on shenanigans. Find an event near you here.
Have fun, get out and about and get your grey matter throbbing with a Treasure Trail. Choose to explore your local area or a new town or city with a self-guided adventure. Each trail lasts about two hours and features clues, challenges and twists with spy, detective and explorer themes. Choose from over 1200 across the UK.
The Wildlife Trust look after over 2,300 nature reserves across the UK – take the opportunity to explore some near you. Many have events over half-term – join conservation days, play wild at a forest school, go on after-dark walks, help ring birds, try family forest bathing, and build your own bird box.
Why not take the opportunity of the break to start a journey into birdwatching? The RSPB’s reserves – many of them free – dot the country. Find an event to inspire you – try nest box building, go on welly walks, or try pond-dipping.
EVENTS INDOOR FUN
Unmissable for Londoners and beyond, the annual Imagine Children’s Festival returns in 2022 for 12 days of fun over half-term. Held in the warm and cosy Royal Festival Hall, at least half of the programme is free of charge; watch theatre shows, enjoy comedians, meet your favourite authors and dance, dance, dance. This year, ticketed shows include Julia Donaldson and Axel Sheffler’s Tales from Acorn Wood, Rapunzel by BalletLORENT, talks by Cressida Cowell and Michael Rosen and Everything Has Changed, which playfully explores the impact of change. Or pick from free events such as a day of illustration and storytelling, giant rubber-stamp workshops, a show based around the ecosystem of balloons or a daytime rave hosted by the youngest club DJ in the world, Archie. More here
The Museum of London Docklands is an excellent place to go this half-term; warm, dry and relatively uncrowded. This holiday, try family yoga, join musician Luke Saydon for a storytelling experience focussed on water and wellbeing, try paper crafts, mindful art exploration and guided meditation as well as guided walks of the city.
Meanwhile The Horniman Museum’s exhibitions are bursting with colour. Explore the world of David McKee’s Elmer and Friends or gasp at the LEGO dinosaurs at Brick Dinos. Time your visit to coincide with one of the free family friendly events at the venue; make your own dinosaur tale, or follow the Montgomery Bonbon Museum Mystery Trail.
Leicester’s Spark Festival is a celebration of children’s arts that includes shows, community projects, and a schools programme. Head to the city to watch playful performances for kids, take a train journey through India, party with the disco PALAVER crowd, make protest art and banners, and takeovers by young writers. Full programme here
Manchester’s Science + Industry Museum’s Turn It Up explores the science of music’s mysterious hold over us in a tuneful playground of tech, interactive exhibits and weird and wonderful instruments. Events this half-term include making your own making your own noise-maker, Sound Session talks from people who work with music, a Family Catwalk Extravaganza, where Ghetto Fabulous will teach you to dance, lip synch and strut, and Follow the Signs, a dance-rap performance.
At the National Roman Legion Museum in Wales it’s Roman Army Week, when young people are invited to join the Second Augustan Legion. They can try on Roman armour and learn how to march. And the National Waterfront Museum is popping with balloon themed events during the half term week, plus, this Saturday is Sadies Butterflies’ Community Day, an event to learn about and celebrate the trans community that includes Drag Queen Story Hours, a fashion show, and speakers sharing their lived experiences.
Liverpool’s museums and galleries are buzzing with things to do this holiday. Watch a moving performance about those who emigrated in the 1800s, hear about the story of Boodles, join a football-themed drawalong and take a tour exploring the history of the old docks.
The National Museum of Scotland takes you out of this world for space-themed activities. Make a lollipop stick space monster or transform a paper cup into a rocket and make it fly, or join a child-friendly pop-up planetarium show. Or join a Madlab electronic workshop and make a flashing alien or light-up space screwdriver with built-in bleeper.
MAKE TAKE HEART
Valentine’s Day is next Tuesday. The usual rose-in-plastic Valentine’s Day gifts make our hearts feel heavier rather than soar, but we adore this very simple woven grass take on the tradition courtesy of Mother Natured. Find lots more nature-inspired ideas for Valentine crafts here (we love the Richard Shilling-inspired land art heart). Meanwhile, this brown paper heart is stylish and easy to make, while this glorious flower creation is more ostentatious, but a lot of kitschy fun. A thumbprint platter that features all the family’s fingermarks is something you or a relative will treasure forever, while these homemade bath bombs are great for teenagers to concoct, and are brilliant gifts. Even tiny kids can make beautiful tissue paper hearts and there are more ideas for small children here (we love the celery stalk rose stamps and string heart).
EVENT AND MAKE BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL
Even the smallest of flats has space for an outside birdhouse. National Nest Box Week starts on Sunday February 14 and aims to encourage everyone to put up nest boxes to promote and enhance biodiversity as well as conserve our breeding birds. Putting up a nest box and, if you’re lucky, seeing a bird raise chicks in it, is incredibly satisfying and inspirational for children. Why not hold your own nest-box making session this weekend? There are simple instructions for a traditional box here, or find how to make a cute one from a kettle here and from a carton here . There’s more quirky inspiration here (we love the house number homes) and here.
EVENT NURTURE NETWORKS
This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. This year’s theme is Let’s Connect; how can we make meaningful connections that support our mental health? FInd videos about the theme made by journalist Josh Smith here and listen to interviews with stars including Dafne Keen and Big Zuu here.
Alternatively, you might like to join a problem-solving fun challenge with Taskmaster Education (we LOVE playing Taskmaster) or find suggestions for family activities that explore the theme of connection here
Encourage your child’s school to take part with assembly guides and class activities, find tips and resources for parents and carers and get involved in spreading the word here.
WHAT WE’RE EATING Apple Pie Flapjack with Cinnamon and Nutmeg Two British pudding classics combined from the kitchen of Katy Beskow. Here, you get all the flavours of apple pie, with the comfort of flapjack! Find the recipe here
WHAT WE’RE READING Forgotten ‘Stonehenge of the north’ given to nation by construction firm: “Two enormous and thrillingly mysterious ancient monuments, part of a complex regarded as the Stonehenge of the north, have been given to the nation and will come off England’s heritage at-risk register.
The Thornborough Henges, near Ripon, in North Yorkshire, are three huge, human-made, enclosed earth circles. Each is more than 200 metres in diameter and they date from 3500BC to 2500BC, making them late neolithic/early bronze age monuments. Historic England and English Heritage have announced, after years of concern, that they have secured the future of two of the henges and parts of the surrounding landscape.
Read more here
