Summer (and picnic season) is just around the corner, soon the wet and cold days will be a distant memory as we are basking in the sun, with a classic picnic basket beside us filled with food and drinks and fun things that make the perfect picnic.
If you're picnicking with a lot of kids, there are some picnic packing tips to keep them entertained - you'll be able to relax knowing that they are having fun (and won't bother you for a little while!) while you sit and chat in a shady spot (or a sunny one!)
In this article, we’re going to run through some great ideas and items to keep kids engaged while you’re out on a family picnic, from sweet hampers to toys to trash bags, you'll be the perfect picnic date after reading this article!
Active toys
Active toys are, perhaps, the best way to get kids to be involved in nearly any activity. Kids are, so often, at their absolute happiest when they’re running around, screaming and shouting, with their friends and family in the great outdoors.
When you pick your next picnic spot, the first thing (after the food of course!) you should do is bring out the toys. Whether it's a Frisbee, a rounders set or a giant jenga set there are so many games you can bring to this outdoor feast. If you want to give them their own space, bring a few blankets and a beach umbrella for them to play under!
Always ensure picnics mean fun. For kids, sitting and eating food can get a bit boring, so remember to keep them active. It could even be as simple as finding a picnic table in a park so they have got somewhere to go and waste all of their energy!
Sweet hamper
A sweets hamper can be an utterly wonderful thing and we think its the best picnic food or all picnic foods. There are many, many reasons why we love it, but sweet hampers, and especially kids sweet hampers, can be a wonderful way to bring attention to the core of the food at a picnic day.
The thing that makes a lot of picnics quite tricky to manage is that all of the food can be too straightforward - it’s often something as simple as cheese sandwiches since they’re easy to make and easy to carry.
A sweet hamper, though, introduces the obvious bonus of treats into the equation, as well as a level of unpredictability. If you keep the contents of the sweet hamper a secret, you can greatly extend the amount of time that the hamper is enjoyed for.
Kids’ sweets can often be a little samey, meaning that kids can get bored, even with sweets! With a sweet hamper, though, there’s typically a wide variety of personalised choices available at the point of purchase, meaning that you can ensure the basket is replete with great options for your child.
A kids’ sweet hamper can be enjoyed for a fairly long time at a picnic ground, which makes the entire process of the picnic a little more enjoyable. We say this because you can introduce the hamper before eating, sharing a small treat. Then, you can have another immediately following the meal, followed by another treat midway through a game of some kind, and a final one during the car ride home.
Having kids absorb sugar and then immediately burn it off by running through a park is a great way to ensure that they are engaged in the here and now - they’ll be hyper focused on every detail around them, bringing a little joy to their little world.
Finger Foods
A good picnic has a variety of foods, so alongside sweets, it's good to have a whole range of savoury foods to enjoy on a paper plate.
Pasta salads, fresh fruits, and small sandwiches are the perfect addition for the whole family at any picnic. For the little ones, make them a plate that will keep them entertained and give them more energy to go and play!
If you make all of these snacks in small portions, it makes packing easy and you are able to get a bigger variety in.
Picnic Blanket
Blankets can be a great way to bring some enjoyment and investment to a picnic. By this, we mean that personal blankets for any and all of the kids involved in the picnic can be bought quite cheaply, and having that sense of ownership can be brilliant for a young one.
This might sound a little silly, but making a game out of keeping the blankets clean and folding them up nicely is a fun way to instill a lesson about cleanliness in little ones. They will often be very happy to comply with the idea of keeping their own space clean if they get a chance to ‘win’ at it - generating a game of it is a wonderfully efficient way to bring a sense of motivation to the fore.
You could also take it one step further and pack a plastic bag for the rubbish, this way all of the kids can be involved in putting the picnic area back to how it was when you first arrived.
Magnifying Glasses
Magnifying glasses are a really brilliant way to make sure that you can encourage curiosity in a young one while you’re out in a public space. Whether you’re in a park in the middle of the countryside or a park in the middle of the city, there are bound to be a few bugs strolling around. Encouraging your kids to use their magnifying glasses to hunt them down and see what they’re up to can be a really sweet way to watch your kids learn about the world around them.
You can expand this activity by adding a sense of documentation to it all. This could include encouraging your kids to draw and write about the miniature beasts that they find, fostering an interest in the mini world around them. At the end of the day, this is precisely what scientists did before the invention of small, portable cameras!
The one thing that we would encourage all parents and guardians to do is to make sure that the magnifying glasses are put away properly. It’s something that people don’t really appreciate, but a stray magnifying glass really can start a fire! Make sure that they’re put away whenever the little ones aren’t actively playing with them - that’s the best way to ensure that everyone’s safe.
We hope that this article has been able to share some insightful ideas about bringing some joy to a picnic for your kids. We’re sure that kids will love these ideas, and opting for one at your next picnic will help to ensure that they look forward to every picnic after that.
Picnic Basket & Ice Packs
Without a basket, is it really a picnic? A picnic basket for serving food and transporting it (In a proper basket you're safe from crushed food), is what we all think of when we think about the picnics we had in out childhood.
It's like a really cool lunch box and can double up a trash can at the end of the day.
In the basket, a great way to keep the food cold, drinks cold and ensure food safety is by popping ice packs all around the edge of the basket, this way everything is kept at an ideal temperature.
If you want to avoid sticky fingers, make sure to pack a packet of wipes, paper towels and paper napkins in the basket too!
Bottle Opener for The Adults
Staying hydrated on a warm day spent at a simple picnic is of utmost importance, and for the kids, bottles of squash are the perfect drinks, but for the adults it might be worth bringing wine glasses and a bottle of sometime nice to really enjoy the sunny day.
Al fresco dining is best enjoyed with a cork sealed wine, and make sure to remember the bottle opener too!