Your screen-free survival guide for the six-week stretch

The summer holidays run around six weeks. That’s roughly 42 days of "I'm booooored" to look forward to. Six weeks is a long time. The novelty of "no school!" wears off somewhere around day three, and then it's you, a small human, and the eternal question: what are we doing today?

You don't need a Pinterest-perfect plan or a spare fortune. What actually works is variety and a bit of prep: a few things they can crack on with on their own (an activity book is perfect), a few you do together (bonus point if they’re crafts you can make from things sitting in your recycling bin), and a handful of low-effort ideas for rainy days and frazzled afternoons where you've run out of steam.

As it turns out, toilet roll tubes, empty tissue boxes and big cardboard boxes will get you a surprisingly long way this summer. And a certain panda may even have made a free activity book… so here's our little guide, packed with our favourite ideas that’ll keep 5–11s busy without defaulting to screens (most of the time… we're not miracle workers). 

And no judgement if they do sometimes. UK kids are online close to three hours a day on average, so screens are just part of modern life. A few screen-free options in your back pocket just help keep the balance over a long six weeks.

How do you keep kids entertained over the six-week summer holiday?

Mix three types of activity so you're never caught out: structured (an activity book or printable pack they can do solo), hands-on (crafts and making things, ideally from stuff you already have), and low-effort (garden games, cooking, quiet time). Rotate them, let the kids help choose, and keep a "boredom box" of craft bits topped up. That variety, rather than any single activity, is what will hopefully get you through!

Start with an activity book they can dip into

An activity book is the easiest win of the whole holiday: hand it over, and they've got puzzles, games and things to make ready to go. No setup, no screens, no "muuum I'm bored" for a blissful while.

We've made the Cheeky Panda Activity Book for exactly these moments. It’s packed with puzzles, colouring, games and craft ideas to keep 5-11s happily busy, whether that’s in the car, on a rainy day, or while you get five minutes' peace.

You can get it two ways:

  • Digital download: grab it instantly and print pages as you need them, so it lasts all summer. 

  • Get your printed copy for free: Cheeky Panda’s printed activity book comes as a free gift when you spend £39.99 or more at Cheeky Panda*, so you can stock up on the bamboo essentials and get the kids sorted in one go. 

It's the same thinking behind everything we make: genuinely useful, thoughtfully done, one less thing to worry about. Care without compromise, school-holiday edition, if you will.

3 screen-free crafts you can make from your recycling

The best summer crafts cost nothing, because you've already bought the materials. Empty loo-roll tubes and tissue boxes are craft gold. Here are three we've made over on our Instagram, all doable at the kitchen table in an afternoon:

1. Tissue-box table football - Turn an empty tissue box into a mini table-football pitch, and get a brilliant rainy-day two-player game once it's built. Great for competitive siblings (you have been warned). Watch how →

2. Loo-roll-tube binoculars - Two empty toilet-roll tubes become a pair of explorer's binoculars. Decorate them, add a string to hang round the neck, and send them off on a garden bug-hunt or back-garden safari. Watch how →

3. Loo-roll-tube puppets - Turn empty tubes into a cast of characters, then put on a puppet show. This one offers endless variations, and it doubles as a quiet-time activity when energy levels finally dip. Watch how →

There's a neat bonus here: every craft is one less tube or box in the bin. Colin's been saving his empties all year for this exact reason!

And don't recycle the big box just yet. The boxes our toilet rolls come in are properly big, which is ideal for the crafts that need real space. Turn one into a den or fort, a cardboard car or rocket, a puppet theatre for the tube puppets above, or a drive-in cinema for their toys. One box, a whole afternoon, sorted.

More boredom-busters for 5–11s

When the crafts are done and the book's had a rest, here's a grab-bag to rotate through:

Get them outside:

  • A garden "Olympics": timed races, welly-throwing, a homemade obstacle course…
  • A nature scavenger hunt: write a list (something red, something soft, a feather, a funny-shaped leaf) and off they go! 
  • Chalk drawings, water play, or a den built from an old sheet and a washing line are oldies but goodies

Rainy-day rescue:

  • Baking together: junior bakers love weighing, mixing and (mostly) the eating
  • A living-room "camp-out" with a torch and a made-up story 
  • A jigsaw or card-game tournament with a homemade leaderboard

Quiet time (for everyone's sanity):

  • A reading nook with a snack and a timer
  • Junk-modelling from the recycling box: no instructions, just "make something" 
  • Drawing their own comic strip or writing a tiny story

The trick with all of these: set it up, step back, and let them take it where they want. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to buy you twenty minutes and give them something to be proud of

A few sanity-savers for parents

Keeping kids busy all summer is a proper juggle, especially if you're working around it. A few things that genuinely help: keep a topped-up "boredom box" of craft supplies (and empty tubes) so you're never starting from scratch; let the kids pick from a short list so they feel in charge; and don't feel you have to fill every hour… A bit of boredom is where the best imaginative play comes from.

Our founder Julie built Cheeky Panda while raising a young family, so "how do I keep them happy and get things done?" is a question close to home. This piece is our attempt to make that juggle a little lighter.

Whatever the six weeks throw at you, a bit of variety goes a long way. Explore the Cheeky Panda activity book and our bamboo essentials, and if you make one of the crafts, tag us @cheekypandahq on TikTok or Instagram!

*T&Cs apply