Okay parents, take a deep breath and begin to relax – the end is in sight and the summer holidays are almost complete.

People with school age children usually fall into one of two categories:

1. They’ve had an amazing six weeks, their kids have behaved impeccably without arguing once, and they wish the break from school could last another 6 weeks.

2. The last few weeks have felt like an eternity, their kids have been close to having a full on wrestling match on several occasions and school cannot come soon enough.

Most parents fall into the second category!

It’s not because they don’t enjoy spending time with their kids, but because keeping them busy, happy and occupied for longer than ten minutes at a time is challenging (to say the least), and usually involves remortgaging your house or taking out a very large bank loan.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, and there are actually some really fun and free activities to enjoy with your kids during the last few days of the summer break. At the very least, these ideas should give you a few minutes peace and quiet to enjoy a cuppa, a biscuit and a sneaky game or two of online bingo with your friends at Mecca.

Cardbox Box Village

How many times have you bought a big expensive gift for your little ones, only to find they’re much more interested in the box it was packaged in than the present itself?

With a little imagination, some sticky tape and a lot of paint, empty boxes can be turned into literally ANYTHING!

Houses, shops and cars are always popular options and will keep your little ones happy for hours on end. The best news of all is that once they’ve finished playing with it, it can be thrown into the recycling. No more plastic rubbish cluttering up the toy box.

Great British Bake Off

Okay, baking might need a little more supervision than cutting out cardboard, but should be lots of fun for you all.

Ask your little ones to pick something they would like to bake from a selection of easy recipes (make sure you have the ingredients in your cupboard first) and then simply let them bake it, allowing them to do as much of the work as possible!

You’ll probably be tempted to grab the wooden spoon from their hands and take over the mixing to speed things up, but avoid this as much as possible. The end result isn’t hugely important – what matters is having fun and letting your kids be independent.

Puddle fun

We all know that the British weather can be unpredictable, so embracing it and going with the flow is going to be important during the final few days of August.

Jumping in muddy puddles might seem like your worst kind of nightmare, but I promise you that once you’ve done it once you’ll love it.

Pull on a pair of wellies, pray for rain and think like Peppa Pig.