Holiday activities for kids

How do you feel about colouring sheets? I would prefer my kids to draw than colour in pre-drawn scenes. I provide lots of opportunities and materials so that drawing is part of our everyday life. But you know what, I liked colouring sheets as a kid and my kids like them too. We don't use them regularly and I am not a fan of highly detailed colouring books. Thankfully there are many free printables available that give a little prod but don't do all the work. When my kids are a bit lack lustre about drawing, an inspirational colouring or activity sheet can do the trick.... and they are perfect for travel.

A couple of months ago we went on a holiday to the Gold Coast. We had lots of activities planned but I knew that there would also be plenty of time spent in our apartment. I remembered reading about a friend's Big Book of Crafty Goodness where she bound together a stack of kid-friendly printables as gifts. Brilliant idea.... I got to work and made two printable packs for my kids. These were loose leaf packs held together with paper clips and this is what they contained:

• Town colouring sheet by Lessons Learnt Journal. This printable is made up of stacked rectangles and triangles with lots of scope to add in your own detail.
• Printable Drawing Shapes by Picklebums. A whole variety of open-ended circle based printable sheets.
• Monsters by Picklebums. Cute monster shapes to cut out and play with on a vacation.
• Sample pages from Susan Striker's Anti-Coloring book. These are fabulous drawing prompts.
• Alphabet colouring pages by Mr Printables. I included the letters of my kids' names just for fun.
• Printable mazes. Cakey is just beginning to enjoy the challenge of a maze.
• A couple of abstract swirly doodles which you can download here and here.
• My fish printable. A simple fish outline perfect for kids to add fishy detail.
• My flowers and rainbows colouring sheet.
• I also included some coloured paper with random holes and shapes cut out of them, this was inspired by a post by The Artful Parent.
• Had I seen this post before the holiday I also would have included this awesome googly eye drawing prompt.

I also took away a set of pencils and markers as well as our watercolour tray. The kids chose to paint most of the printable sheets. When we returned I bound together the painted sheets as a holiday journal. On the back of each page I wrote a few notes to remind us of all the things we did on our family holiday. 

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Linked to The Kids Co-op, Tuesday Tots