Summer, sea, long-awaited family vacation and finally you can relax on the beach. Joke! If you are on vacation with children, you most likely will not be able to relax. All parents of active and inquisitive children know that scoops, watering cans and even a whole suitcase of toys arouse interest among toddlers only at first. Fortunately, there are plenty of other ways to keep your child busy on the beach and at the same time get real pleasure from a vacation with the whole family.
So, what interesting things can you do on the beach?
Build
For any two-year-old, the beach is, first and foremost, a giant sandbox. Build sand with your children: castles, aqueducts, entire cities and everything that comes to mind! Bring a few small figurines with you to place them in the finished buildings. Just remember that every little thing is easily lost on the beach; do not take your child’s favorite toys with you. You can keep your baby occupied for a long time by entrusting him with burying dad in the sand. Work in shifts – while dad is being buried, mom can take a bath, then change. But you need to be ready to jump up at any moment and catch the child if he suddenly decides to hide from sight. So don’t fall asleep in the process!
Play
Role-playing games are great for developing imagination. You just need to help the children a little with the plots. For example, treasure hunting: hide a small object in the sand, put a mark, draw a map and look for your treasure together! You can start solving the tracks, since there are a lot of them on the beach – crabs, dogs, people, birds (or is it a baby dinosaur?). And, of course, it’s a rare child who will refuse to play pirates or Indians!
Learn
If you like quieter activities, set up an open-air school – count seagulls and ships together, learn to write letters in the sand, lay out your names out of stones. In the fresh air, knowledge is absorbed better. And for very young children, the beach is a ready-made (and free) development center. You can sort pebbles, pour water from a bottle into a bucket and back, pour sand through a funnel (make it from a plastic bottle, don’t carry extra with you).
Collect
Collect pebbles and shells for crafts, and at home, using colored paper, glue and plasticine, you will make sea animals and other funny creatures out of them and remember the sea. You can draw on flat pebbles with paints or wax crayons; it is better to take the latter with you to the beach right away to keep your child occupied for a long time right there. Look for small shells with holes – they make great necklaces. But remember, from many countries it is prohibited to export coral fragments, shells and even stones.
Perform scientific experiments
Make a sand volcano. To do this, you will need baking soda, vinegar and a regular plastic bucket. Fill the bucket ¾ full with sand, fill it with baking soda to the brim, and sprinkle it with sand to make it look like a volcano. And don’t forget to leave a vent hole. Pour vinegar into it and watch the eruption! Study magnetism – if you move a magnet over sand, it will attract small pebbles and grains of sand containing metal. Again, don’t forget about searching for treasure – your child will happily wander along the beach and extract various metal objects from the sand using a magnet.
Do sports and active games
Ball, badminton and frisbee are obligatory summer companions, without them a vacation is not a vacation! And if you are tired of the usual beach games, try something new together – “surfing” on an inflatable mattress, a boomerang, water guns made from plastic bottles and, of course, kites.
And, of course, swim, sunbathe and just chat with each other – this is what you came for!
Top 5 best beach hotels in different parts of the world for families with children.
1. Belmond Copacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2. Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai, UAE
3. Grand Bahia Principe Jamaica, Runaway Bay, Jamaica
4. The Oberoi, Lombok, Tanjung, Indonesia
5. Trou aux Biches Resort&Spa, Trou aux Biches, Mauritius
You can find and book a hotel on OneTwoTrip.
