• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
    • Join Creator Network
    • Courses & Creator Toolkit
    BritMums

    BritMums

    The UK's Original Influencer Network

    • About
    • For Brands
    • Contact
    • Food & Recipes
      • Pancake Day
      • Valentine’s Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Quick & easy
      • Midweek Meals
      • Vegetarian
      • Puddings & desserts
      • Baking
      • Sunday lunch
    • Family Travel
      • UK Travel
        • Days Out
      • Europe
      • Spain
      • Summer holidays
      • Winter holidays
    • Lifestyle
      • Mother’s Day
      • Family & Relationships
      • SEND Families & Children
      • Style
      • Health & Beauty
    • Education
      • Homeschooling
      • Back to school
    • Events
      • About Events
      • Latest News
    • Influencers
      • Advice to be a better influencer
      • Earn with BritMums Pro
      • Join! Paid projects & more
      • Twitter Chats
      • SnapHappyBritMums
      • Giveaways & Linkys
    • Search
    Holiday Makers collage 800

    Holiday Makers: Mums share more summer fun ideas #ad

    Facebook0Tweet0Pin0Email0Print0LinkedIn0
    17 August 2018 by BritMums
    Northeast Family Fun daughter on BritMums
    Picture: Northeast Family Fun

     

    Summer can be full of all kinds of fun things – family games, picnics outdoors – and not-so-great things – the kids vegging in front of screens, unlearning everything they know from school.

    Then it can be full of all kinds of surprising things that keep kids excited, engaged and learning – spaghetti bridges, chain reactions, flying machines and desert island inventions.

    On The Holiday Makers site, created by The Year of Engineering, families can find summer activities and challenges with prizes to get children making, doing and thinking. BritMums has been working with YoE, to promote the Holiday Makers site. In this sponsored post, we enlisted mums and their children to try out some of the fantastic challenges and activities from Holiday Makers.

    The Year of Engineering is a government initiative created to inspire more young people to consider engineering careers by discovering the amazing engineering all around them, and highlighting the skills and interests that make children natural engineers.

    A desert island challenge that makes kids think

    Survival necklace on BritMums
    An innovative solution to a desert-island challenge: A survival necklace

     

    Samantha from Northeast Family Fun describes how her kids spent hours doing one of the Holiday Makers challenges. The task: Imagine you’re shipwrecked and come up with a desert island invention. Her children’s survival necklace is a well-considered sight to behold! Watch her video below and then click through to read the full post. 

     

     

    Kate Davis Holmes wrote about her children’s experience for the BritMums blog. She describes how the challenge sparked their critical thinking. 

    “Imaginations were stimulated as we came up with other potential problems you might face on a desert island,” she writes. “How would we ensure we were safe and able to deal with medical issues such poisoning or an accident? What could we develop to ensure we could communicate if each of us were in different parts of the island? What if we wanted to escape?” Their solutions drew upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. (Read the full post to find out what they decided to make.)

     

    Holiday Makers 2 girls doing a desert island challenge BritMums
    Kate’s children thought about the list of things they would need and what was more important. Picture: Kate Davis-Holmes

     

    A fun flying machine

    Chelsea Mamma’s daughter made a ring glider with instructions from the site and simple materials around the house. She loved the activity so much, “she has taken in the instructions on how to make the ring glider to holiday club, so they can all make them together. “ See how they made the ring glider in her full post.

    Chelsea Mamma daughter making a ring glider
    Eliza, Chelsea Mamma’s daughter, shows how fun (and satisfying) building a glider can be

     

    Fun that keeps on going

    Rainy Day Mum describes how families can use the site, from building and playing and more:

    “There’s even a holiday journal to record all your Holiday Makers progress over the summer. Children can collect stamps in their digital journal by completing different activities or download a printable version to track their progress.

    Chelsea Mamma says, “Eliza is diligently filling out her journal to take to school in September.”

    Family events happening around the UK

     

    Holiday Makers engineering events in the UK on BritMums
    A screenshot of the Holiday Makers map, showing events around the UK

     

    On the Holiday Makers site, you can check out cool events happening near you from things like The Future Leading Ladies for Life in Newcastle that encourages girls to choose STEM careers to an aircraft tour in Glasgow, to the Cardboard Boat Race in Plymouth! You get behind the scenes access to a wide variety of places to show what a career in engineering looks like.

    Sam from Northeast Family Fun writes: “I like the sound of Future Engineers at The National Railway Museum in York over October Half Term – we’re actually visiting York in October so I’m going to try and pop in. Definitely a date for the diary! If you’re looking for an engineering event this summer, how about The Art of Chris Pulham at Locomotion in Shildon? This exhibition is free to visit from 19 August – 30 September and celebrates the glorious days of steam on Britain’s railways!”

    Jenny from Monkey and Mouse has her eye on an event in Scotland:

    “I really love the look of the RAF100 Tour at Glasgow Science Centre, open from 31st August to 2nd September 2018.  They will have an interactive STEM and Techno zone as well as several aircraft on display. It sounds like a great way to get into engineering, plus there are loads of other fantastic STEM exhibits at the science centre.”

    (Read Jenny’s full post here.)

    Videos to watch together

    ”We have been using the video section this week, which is full of resources to inspire and inform children, tweens and teens and features everything from the life of a software engineer at Twitter to how engineering is used in the film industry,” says Samantha. “Our favourite is ‘The method behind the magic’ which shares some of the fantastic engineering used behind the scenes at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour.”

    “I particularly love the Engine Ears video, it’s great for getting younger kids to understand how much engineering is involved in our everyday lives,” says Jenny.

     

    Visit The Holiday Makers to take advantage of the great activities and the challenges, in which kids can win prizes. PLUS you can discover fun family activities through the rest of summer and early autumn that get kids thinking, engaged and excited about making and doing!

    Keep your children stimulated and engaged this summer with The Holiday Makers. The website has enough activities & challenges to keep them having fun and learning all summer long! More details here: yearofengineering.gov.uk

    BritMums is promoting #TheHolidayMakers campaign, sponsored by The Year of Engineering. It’s all about getting children excited about engineering with fun and stimulating activities that will keep them engaged all summer long. Check out https://www.yearofengineering.gov.uk/theholidaymakers to find activities for your child, including challenges in which they could win cool prizes!

    (Disclosure: Influencers posts are part of this sponsored campaign. All opinions are their own.)

     

    About

    BritMums is the UK’s original collective of lifestyle bloggers and digital influencers, fueling the country’s most influential social content. We lead the online conversation with members who are parent social influencers creating content on topics ranging from food, parenting, travel, politics, style and more.

    • Mail
    • |
    • Web
    • |
    • Twitter
    • |
    • Facebook
    • |
    • YouTube
    • |
    • More Posts(1545)
    Previous Post: « Holiday Makers desert island challenge Kate Davis Holiday Makers: How kids tackle a desert island challenge #ad
    Next Post: How to use social media more efficiently smartphones social media newbies 800x400 »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Sam | North East Family Fun Blog

      21 August 2018 at 14:54

      We loved being part of this project and it kickstarted a week of engineering as we spent the following day building bridges at The Mining Institute in Newcastle.

    2. Angela Milnes

      21 August 2018 at 18:25

      These are all fantastic activities to take part in and I love how different and unique the challenges are yet they are all under the umbrella of engineering.

    3. Cerys

      21 August 2018 at 21:01

      This has been a great challenge for the summer. I think for families like ours that are here and there it gives easy activities you can do when you need them very handy for those Rainy Day’s where the kids are bored. The bonus of course is that most of the time they don’t even realise that they are learning.

    Inspiration

    “A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.”

    Melinda Gates

    Popular Posts

    Mother's Day gift and flowers

    36 things to give and get on Mother’s Day

    Sexism now: It’s still here

    mother kissing son on cheek

    22 ideas for celebrating Mother’s Day at home

    Copyright © 2021 · BritMums · All Rights Reserved ·

    BRITMUMS LTD. REGISTERED IN ENGLAND & WALES. REGISTRATION NUMBER 07585463. REGISTERED OFFICE: CHILTERN HOUSE, 45 STATION ROAD, HENLEY-ON-THAMES, OXON, RG9 1AT

    Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

    Email sent!