Earlier this summer my family and I ran our own holiday club at home – and it was 🤩✨AMAZING ✨🤩.

We did a mix of outdoor activities, like tree climbing and wood whittling, and indoor ones like painting and making foam-clay bunnies (and penguins, and birds, and…). It was So. Much. Fun! But one thing I didn’t really expect was how tiring it would be. Play is hard work!

By the end of each of the four days we were all completely zonked – in a good way. We spent whole mornings focused on one or two activities, then the same in the afternoon. It’s quite different from my normal day-to-day life, where I tend to hop from project to project.

It really made me appreciate why my daughter comes home from summer camps exhausted, even when they’re not very physically active. That kind of tiredness – the good kind, where you know you’ve really done something with your day – felt really satisfying.

Would we do it again? Absolutely. We all loved it, with no complaints from anyone, and by the time we finished we were already trying to figure out when we could plan the next one.

Want To Try Your Own Holiday Club At Home?

Running your own holiday club can be as simple or as involved as you like. Here are some tips based on what worked for us:

Let everyone choose activities. My daughter loved having an equal say in what we did, and it made her more excited about the activities.

Plan a mix of indoor and outdoor activities. Variety kept the days interesting and gave everyone something to look forward to.

Keep the schedule simple. We chose one or two activities for the morning and the same for the afternoon – no rushing, just time to really enjoy what we were doing.

Expect to be tired – in a good way! Focusing for hours on one activity is surprisingly different from day-to-day life, but it’s a satisfying kind of tired.

We’re already planning our next one – do you think you’d ever give it a shot?