Share your tips with other members of the Mum and Working Community. Ever month there will be a different theme...and for the best advice our partners Community Times are offering a £50 prize!

Our subject in April is Holiday Activities. To send in your tips about what you do in school holidays - it could be great ideas for free days out or ideas for rainy days at home - email tips@mumandworking.co.uk.

Holiday Activities!

Indoor Picnic: On boring rainy days indoors I sometimes make my children an 'indoor picnic' for lunch. We lay a rug on the living room floor and I make them a packed lunch in their lunchboxes and we sit and have a 'picnic' on the floor. It's very simple but livens up dull days!

Charlotte - Mum to Tallulah (7) and Charlie (4)

Activity Days: If you have friends with children, around about the same age, take it in turns to have a childrens activity day at their homes. One home could have more room, one could have a bigger garden etc. Choose simple tasks like games, painting or face painting. That way every mum gets a break for the day and can leave their children in a safe and trustworthy enviroment. Remember to make an agreement of children to adult ratio. It's also FREE!!

Alison

Colour Eggs!: Hard Boil as many eggs as you want. Then to colour put food colouring, water and vinegar into a mug and put egg in, leave for about 10 minutes then take out. To make patterns draw on the egg with crayon first.

Abi

Homework can be fun!: My 5 year old daughter is always very reluctant to consider doing any of her holiday homework from school during half term and the school holidays. So, to make it more fun and not feel like a chore, I work on her spellings by writing the words really big in bubble writing on a large piece of paper and then using a variety of fun methods, we decorate the word and add pictures that go with the meaning. We use paints, crayons or use pasta shapes, wool etc to make a collage. At the end of the holidays my daughter has learnt all her new words, has had great fun at the same time and can't believe that her homework was so easy!!

Alex - Mum to Katie (5) and Oliver (7 months)

Out and About!: We live by the seaside - so its quite easy to find free outdoor holiday activities to do with my daughters - a bucket and spade is usually enough!. Sometimes go to the beach and gather pebbles and shells then take them home for painting. We also collect seaweed and driftwood and make beach pictures on the sand. Other tips are take some paper and crayons out and then make rubbings of anything interesting you see together - tree bark, leaves, lampost detailing - anything!

Rachel - Mum to Claire (5) and Lucy (3)

Don't forget the library...: My best tip for any Mum in the holidays is to go to your local Library. They often get forgotten about, but have free kids holidays activities on - it could be a craft thing or simply a story-time. On wet afternoons I often take my son up to our local library and just sit and read stories - there is something about the change of environment and the chance we might see other kids (and parents!) that makes is a lot more interesting than reading at home.

Sally - Mum to Charlie (4)

3 fab ideas

I made very simple black and white pictures of items in our house, lamps, beds, shoes, toy garage, TV, etc . I then give the kids one i.e picture of TV and they run to the TV to find a picture of a bed (but which one, we have 3 in our house) they check each bed to find another picture of a lamp, which is downstairs, to find a picture of the plant in the dinning room and so It goes on , for as long or short as you wish and at the end they find some little sweets. Keep the pictures and use them again next time, or add to them to include things in the garden in the summer !!! Great from age 2 upwards.

I cellotape pieces of A4 paper together and draw the outline of a house and draw some lines insdie the house to mark off different rooms. I then give the kids an old argos book or similar and let them cut out furniture, cookers, beds etc and they glue all the bits inside their house !! My kids love this, they love to say things like "oh this clock would look great in here or this bed is going in the boys room because it has Bob the Builder on it " etc. You never know it could be making interior designers of the future !!!!!!!!!!!

Next one best for the garden !! And warmer days ! Get an old icecream tub, lunchbox and fill about 2 inches from the top with warm water, squirt in a drop of washing up liquid, give the kids a straw and them them to blow, they keep on blowing and blowing and the bubbles get higher and higher and start splurging out of the container all over the garden. This is only suitable for kids who can confidently blow through a straw (3 and up ?) or they will get nasty taste in their mouth. You could always drop a bit of food colouring in each one to add to the bubble monster. My eldest son sat playmobil men and cars around his lunch box and as the bubbles went over them he felt the bubble monster was 'getting' them !! Got about almost 2 hours of fun out of this one !!!

Esther

To read January's top tips about Potty Training Click here

To read February's top tips about Food & Feeding Click here

To read March's top tips about Children's Birthday Parties Click here

One of the best boredom busters we know is the CBeebies website - Games, print-off colouring sheets and stories..and its all free! www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies