Hello PPF Family, my name is Emma. Along with being a PPF Instructor at Camp Hill & Coorparoo, I am also a mum of two very active boys, who are currently eight and nine years old. The Easter break is approaching and whilst school holidays can be tiring (relentless demands for snacks, for example) there is also a lot of potential for enjoyment. I love getting out and about with my boys on the holidays and having a break from the grind of the school routine. Below are some tried and tested suggestions for ways to get out and have fun making memories with your brood.

School holiday activities I love

Spend a day at Southbank

Either have a swim in the lagoon and a play in the creek area, or check out the Queensland Museum / GOMA / State Library. If you have enough time and energy, do both! The museum currently has a paid Brickman exhibition which is wonderful for lego lovers.  The rest of the museum is free to access and has plenty of see also. GOMA is currently running three exhibits for kids, including the stunning Fairy Tales exhibit.  The library provides great school holiday activities for school aged kids, including a Science Take Over and Working Country story station.  Pre-booking for some activities is required.  There is also a play area for younger kids and a large picture book section, which is a nice place to rest and recharge. Top tip: park under the museum for $17 all day parking!

Museum of Brisbane (MoB) in the CBD is another good spot for Museum fans.  

Like the Queensland Museum, it runs school holiday programs.  If you would like to explore the Brisbane City Hall Clock Tower, book a tour and meet your guide in the MoB reception.  I took my boys up the Clock Tower when they were aged six and eight, and they were enthralled and had many questions for our guide!

Visit Wellington Point

The kids can enjoy a play on the beachfront playground as well as the beach itself, so bring some swimmers and beach toys. If you time your visit with low tide, you can walk out to King Island. Fish and chips for lunch is a bonus! Dogs on lead are welcome, which means you can bring your fur child too.

Plaster painting at Plaster Fun House

Because you can never have too many hand painted heirlooms in the house! Top tip: give your children a budget before you go in, to help direct their focus and choose from the hundreds of options!

⁠Hop in the car and visit a big playground that you don’t go to often‍

Newfarm Park and Colmslie Reserve are both fabulous big parks. Newfarm Park has the bonus feature of an onsite coffee van. For bigger kids, Frew Park at the Milton tennis centre is a wonderland with lots of climbing and scrambling options!

The local library is a quiet achiever on the school holidays.

They run free school holiday activities on all kinds of topics, from comic book drawing sessions to programming robots. Pre-booking is usually required for these kinds of sessions which are very popular. Kids can join the library and have their own library cards (picking the design is half the fun!) and select their own books to take home, to help foster that love of reading! Parents can have their own library cards too - lucky us! Here are five current reads that, in my opinion, are well worth a busy parent’s time:

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

I Give My Marriage a Year by Holly Wainwright

The Dry by Jane Harper

The Things That Matter Most by Gabbie Stroud

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Mt Coot-tha is another great spot to spend some time at

The Planetarium is situated at the entrance to the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens, and is free to enter. There are occasionally school holiday shows screening in its theatre - book and pay for tickets online. These shows are great for your little space lover! After marvelling at the wonders of space, you can have a wander through the gardens. There is a "Hide N Seek Children’s Trail" which you can follow with the aid of a leaflet from the info desk - an easy flat loop track which has numbered stations for the kids to have fun spotting. If you’d like to walk further afield you can make your way to the playground, or walk one of Mt Coot-tha’s many walking tracks (depending on how far those little legs can go!).

Roma Street parklands is a great spot for some outdoors fun also.

What is even more exciting is the ability to catch a train to arrive at this destination - public transport doesn’t please many adults but it is amazing how much kids get a kick out of it! There are several playgrounds within the grounds and lots of beautiful plants and flowers.

Mini golf - Victoria Park Golf Course has a mini golf course which has a different theme depending on the season.  

Their Easter course is a pastel candy wonderland which makes for some great photo opportunities! If you prefer a course closer to home, Mt Gravatt Mini Golf has a nice little course in the grounds of the Mt Gravatt Showgrounds.

Have a pyjama and games day!

Stay in your Jim jams a little while longer and make an extra cup of tea. Pull out some games - for younger kids, try Go Fish, Snakes & Ladders, Pop & Move and UNO. For older kids, try Monopoly, Sequence, AFL Footy Feud and Scrabble. While enjoying the time at home, consider other activities that you don’t usually have time for… getting out the painting gear, or playdough. Hopefully they play with it for longer than the amount of time it takes to set it up ha ha!\

Enjoy your holidays, Love Emma & the Boys