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Parenting

05th Jul 2019

5 perfect ways to create adventure without leaving your own home

Anna Daly

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Brought to you by Cadbury Dairymilk Freddo Treasures

It’s time to get creative.

It’s great when you can get some time off to take a little trip away with the family but sometimes that just doesn’t happen. More often than we’d like, life forces us to cancel plans or stops us making them at all. Plenty of days we don’t even manage to make it farther than our own front door.

That’s okay though – adventure can happen in our very own homes. It’s just a matter of coming up with a few exciting ideas. Kids’ imaginations are wild – they can go diving to the depths of the ocean while sitting in a bath or ride an elephant right there in their bedroom. So once you put an idea out there, you can guarantee that they will run with it. There are endless home adventures just waiting to be discovered, but here are a few of our fail-safe go-tos for when life stops us getting out.

1. Camp in the garden

Easy enough to accomplish. All you need is a tent and a (preferably enclosed) garden and you’ve got it. Depending on the age and stubbornness of your little ones, it’s very likely that they’ll lose their confidence once the sun starts to set, so this may end up just being a daytime thing. That’s okay too, but if you want to keep the fun going, why not move things to the floor inside? You’re in the safe indoors but still get the excitement of sleeping somewhere unusual.

2. Treasure hunt

There is NOTHING more fun than a treasure hunt. And the best thing about them? You can have them wherever you want. Send the kids to their rooms for an hour while you put together some clues and hide them around the house. The kids have to solve all the clues to eventually find whatever “buried treasure” you have hidden. To make it even more immersive, make everyone dress up like pirates and draw a map (pour coffee on it and let it dry for maximum pirate effect).

3. Picnic in the bedrooms

Normally we try to stay away from food in the bedroom. Someone has to clean up those pesky crumbs and nine times out of ten, that’s us. However, for a bit of family in-house adventure, you can’t beat the bedroom picnic. Make sure you go all out – picnic basket is a must, lay out a blanket, and we suggest you pick up some paper plates for those sambos. We also love building a fort with the kids so that we can eat the picnic inside. Sure it’s usually a squish, but that makes it even more fun.

4. Go on “safari” around the house

We’ll be honest – we’d rather drink milk mixed with orange juice right after brushing our teeth than go near any spiders that may be crawling around the house. On the other hand, we really don’t want to pass on that fear to our little ones, so we do encourage their curiosity and try oh-so-very-hard to seem excited when they hold creepy crawlies in our face. So, while they’re still brave and curious, go on a mini safari with them around the house and garden to see what you can see. If you want to make it more competitive, write out a little checklist that they can tick off as they go.

5. Create an obstacle course

Got any spare boxes lying around? If so, you’re sorted. If not, well it’s time to get creative with chairs and blankets. If you have more than one child or if one of the parents is joining in, and you have enough props to use, set up two obstacle courses side by side and have a race. If there are elbow and knee pads in the house, throw them on the kids so they look properly rigged out. Sure, they may just be falling on pillows and carpet, but you gotta look the part! We love this one, even if it is a tad messy afterwards. Worth the cleanup, in our opinion (and we never say that!).

So, there you have it. Five fun and quirky activities to get your adventure fill without leaving the house. Goodness knows we need them with these Irish “summer” days. So happy local adventuring, Mums and Dads, and remember – these adventures are for you too!

Brought to you by Cadbury Dairymilk Freddo Treasures

Cadbury Dairymilk Freddo Treasures are now on sale and are the perfect little snack to bring on your adventures. Camp Freddo is back from 11-14 August but tickets are SOLD OUT. Lucky for you, we’re giving away some tickets here on HerFamily, so check out those competitions to try and nab a family pass for yourself and the little adventurers.