Picnics with people of any age can be all consuming, demanding affairs. There’s the picnic to pack, the location to pick, and the games to play to keep everyone occupied when you’re there.
Too much madness to manage? Here are my top tips for planning a perfect summer picnic with the kids.
Packing the Picnic
My first recommendation is to assign your child their very own picnic pack. A special lunch bag of their very own is fantastic for driving ownership of their belongings. Ask them to carry it and collect it afterwards and I guarantee they’ll be very excited they have a picnic bag all of their own!
The what2buy4kids website stocks a tremendous range. What’s my favourite? This dino-themed ‘feeding time’ version – bugzz-dinosaur-lunch bag
The website also stocks the super-handy Little Squirts. These practical, compact drinks bottles are easy to transport, they fold up when empty, are dishwasher proof and can be attached to bags, too. There are loads of fun characters in the range, (I particularly like the octopus!)
Choosing the food
The trick to great picnic food is to find easy, low-effort recipes that transport well. The trick to doing it with kids is to keep it fun and get them involved.
Lose the sandwiches
Try quiche instead: Buy a pre-baked pastry case so you don’t have to mess about blind-baking the base; mix up eggs, milk and your favourite savoury flavours, (mine’s Quiche Lorraine). Bake and cool. It makes for a solid, scrumptious dish that’s easy to transport – it won’t spill and can be cut into smaller pieces. You could even make individual quiches and options of all sizes are available at the supermarkets if you don’t fancy baking.
Make it kid-kind: Ask them to help with the measuring and mixing. They’ll take delight counting out all those eggs and peering through a glass oven door as it begins to bubble and bake. When it’s time to cut it up, discussions around how many people are going and how many slices are needed reinforce that involvement and aid numeracy skills.
Top Tip: Quiche defrosts in just a couple of hours and when added frozen to your picnic box will act as an ice block. If you’ve got a couple of hours until lunchtime this is a great way to keep other items cool without needing extra space for an ice block!
Salad kebabs
These work really well if there’s a barbecue involved but also make for delicious cold snacks if prepared in advance. Take courgettes, peppers, red onion and baby tomatoes – and another other veg you fancy! Slice and dice them into bite-sized pieces, leaving the small tomatoes whole. Add a little olive oil, mixed herbs and crushed garlic to a bowl, throw in the veg and mix until everything is well coated. Next, skewer them onto wooden kebab sticks and roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Once cooled, pop in a big tupperware box for easy transportation.
Make it kid-kind: They’ll love skewering the veg onto the sticks! Ask them to count how many pieces of veg they put on each, and make patterns with the colours, too.
Dessert
We can never get enough fruit in our kids! But fruit in the sun tends to brown very quickly, it attracts the bugs and you’re left with rind, peels and cores. Not too troublesome but this top tip takes all that hassle away.
Choose a selection of fruits and chop them up into bite sized pieces. Apples, satsuma and grapes work really well for this, and tinned pineapple or mandarins are great too. Choose your kids’ favourite jelly flavour, mix it up and dish it out into small, plastic bowls with lids. Drop in the fruit and leave it to set.
You’ll be left with healthy desserts each containing a wholesome portion of fruit, that are easy to transport and delicious to eat!
Picnic Essentials
Here’s what to pack in your picnic hamper. I actually use a large, lidded storage box, (the kind with clips on the lid) and during the summer months have it continually packed with these essentials. Then when it’s time to go, I just pop the food in the cool box and away we go! When we get back, I get all the crockery washed quick sharp and back in the box for next time. This saves hours of hassle hunting around for the essentials! And if you’re into camping, this list and pre-packing idea is very transferable.
• A large rug – or two!
• Wet wipes – grubby fingers galore
• Talc – if you’re at the beach, talc helps get rid of sand in a jiffy!
• Suncream, sun hats, sunglasses
• Warmer layers – just in case
• A wind / sun tent – these are great if the wind gets up! These pop up tents are easy to transport too.
• Plastic plates, beakers and cutlery – spares just for picnics
• First aid kit – just in case
Games galore!
All that wide open space! Picnics are great for letting the kids run off steam. A simple game of chase or tag might be enough to keep them occupied. If you’d like a little more structure, these adorable but robust skittle sets are lots of fun and easy to spot in long grass!
Happy Hopperz are inflatable so easy to transport and they can be wiped clean too. A fun activity that needs space so perfect at picnic time. Great exercise too!
These Animal Poppers are so much fun for kids of all ages! Squeeze the animal in the middle and a soft foam ball flies out of its mouth. There are cows, penguins, sharks and more – lots of fun!
For even more picnic game inspiration, try this blog post about good old fashioned FREE games for kids: Eleven-old-fashioned-free-games-for-kids
Where will your next picnic be? And what will you pack? Let me know in the comments.
Written by Lisa Bradburn
Lisa is the managing director of what2buy4kids. Lisa’s wish is to make your job of finding a gift for the children in your life easier, or help you to take some of the time and frustration out of the search for that special gift for kids.
You can follow her on Twitter @what2buy4kids and Facebook
at facebook.com/What2Buy4Kids