Every year when the school holidays hit, the real headache isn’t actually the kids, it’s the parents who both work. Term time is fine, school’s got it covered. The second holidays start, kid’s home all day, parents still have to go to work like normal, nobody watching them, nobody organising anything. It really tests how […]
100 Things To Do With Kids
If you’re a parent, I bet you know this feeling. Every Friday night, a little alarm goes off in my head: tomorrow’s the weekend, what am I actually going to do with the kids? If we go out, I worry about crowds. If we stay home, I worry we’re wasting the day doing nothing. So […]
Are Private School Holidays Longer Than Public School Holidays?
We were walking back from drop-off on a Wednesday when one of the school mums mentioned her daughter had already finished for the year. Done. Gone. See you in February. My son still had another week and a bit left at his Catholic primary and I did that thing where you nod along and go […]
We Looked at How Hundreds of Aussie Mums Handle School Holidays — We Found 6 Patterns
My son finished his second Lego set by Saturday morning, and school had only been out since Thursday. He’s five, he started Prep a few weeks ago, and last week was his first ever school holidays. I honestly thought I was ready for this. I was not ready for this. He built the first set […]
Vacation Care, Sports Camp or a Specialty Interest Camp? What Actually Works for a Working Family These School Holidays
Australian kids get four lots of school holidays a year, and if you are a working parent, that is four separate rounds of the same question: what on earth do we do with them this time. Chinese and Anglo families alike seem to hit the same wall right before every break starts, comparing notes on […]
Which Is the Shortest School Term in Australia?
My cousin in Perth text me the week Term 1 started this year. “Is it just me, or did we only just go back?” WA kids were back on 2 February, and by the time she sent that, the autumn holidays were already the main topic at pickup. She wasn’t wrong to notice. The shortest […]
How Can I Avoid Crowds During School Holidays?
We learned this one the hard way at Bondi. It was the October long weekend crossing into the spring school holidays, we’d promised the kids the “famous pool by the beach,” and by the time we found parking (twenty minutes, ten dollars, still annoyed about it) the Icebergs pool was more elbow than water. We […]
Day Camp or Vacation Care? What Actually Suits Your Family
There’s a message that does the rounds in every parent group about a week before the holidays start. “So what are you doing with the kids this time, camp or vacation care?” Someone always replies with a laughing emoji, because nobody actually knows the difference until they’ve booked the wrong one. I found this out […]
How many weeks are the Christmas summer holidays in Australia?
Australian schools break up for around six weeks over Christmas and summer, though the exact number of weeks depends on the state or territory. It’s the longest holiday period of the school year, running from mid-December through to late January or early February. Each Australian state and territory sets its own school calendar, so the […]
50 Fun Scavenger Hunt Clues for Kids (Free Backyard List)
Day four of the school holidays. The kids were upside down on the couch, doing that thing where they announce they’re “SO bored” like it’s my fault personally. I didn’t have a plan. Didn’t have a Pinterest board, didn’t have anything, really, except a biro and the sudden realisation that the backyard had been sitting […]