It’s Half Term for all next week. (We know some of you lucky bunnies have had a week already, but here are the rest of us catching up!) We wish you fair winds, plenty of leave, and good weather. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for how to have seasonal fun.
Outdoor and Proud
Obviously Halloween flavours the October half term, and we have already talked about Halloween delights for all ages, in our Halloween blog. So here are some activities more related to the turn of the season (but coincidentally featuring a few pumpkins).
The Harcourt Arboretum Autumn Fair is always a multi-sensory celebration of the site and the season, with music, stalls, food, archery, a horse called Harry who works the land, weaving, facepainting, trails to find fungi and other natural phenomena, and a free shuttle bus from Redbridge P&R.
BBOWT offer events at weekends and in the holidays, as well as maintaining many, many beautiful patches of conserved land across Oxfordshire. There are only a few spaces left for Hedgehog House Building, but their reserves will be spectacular all week!
For pumpkin fun, you can pick your own at both Rectory and Millets Farms, or enjoy a plethora of pumpkins, of all shapes, sizes and personalities, at Bunkers Hill. This is an independent garden centre, and if you’ve only been to rather soulless corporate garden centres before it’s a labyrinthine revolution, with colour, moss, outdoor cafe space, and pumpkin trail with donations going to Oxfordshire MIND. By the way, we really encourage you to eat the delicious pumpkin scoopings rather than binning them: a little chopped onion, stock, coconut milk and chilli and you have yourself a warming soup!
Children without adults
We know there is more school holiday than annual leave, and sometimes children and young people need safe occupation while parents work. If you’re still looking for something like this, we recommend the following.
For the sports-mad, North Oxford Lawn Tennis Association runs holiday camps in their hidden space in Summertown. Every morning children aged 5-16 can go and perfect their serves on grass or hard courts with qualified coaches. Ignite Sport offer a variety of sports but are particularly strong on football coaching - not surprising since they take place at Marsh Lane Sports Ground in Marston (home of Oxford City Football Club). There are also some art/craft days too.
Capers Bookshop on Magdalen Rd have loads going on for both adults and children, but through the Narnia wardrobe Tue-Thu they let Cygnet Art School take over, with workshops in clay, pastels, watercolour, charcoal and acrylic. Creation Theatre offer all the aspects of performing arts, in a series of 1 day workshops, including puppetry, stop motion, writing, and play-in-a-day.
Older children might want to wield soldering irons and be engineers for an hour on Thursday 30th, at the IF Oxford event Fusion Fix It, and children of all ages can make potable potions at Oxford Castle, in 1-hour long workshops. Perfect if the grown-ups have frantic shopping to do, or a potion of their own to drink in one of the nearby cafes.
Family time
If you’re looking for something to do together, there’s plenty for you too! First up, Capers Books again, which has lots going on all week. We particularly liked the look of Halloween cookery, and a look at Moggie McFlea the Witch’s Cat, with its author Anna Kemp (both on Friday 31st itself).
For more crafty fun, Banbury Museum have events all week. The paper skeleton making on Tue 28th looks a lot of fun, crafting Day Of The Dead rattlers! And at the Westgate Library on Friday 31st you can look ahead to the Christmas show season, at a workshop with Emma Boor on songs and puppets from Supermarket Scrooge. for absolutely free.
Pegasus have shows both of the flanking weekends: One Click Away on 25th, set in a world entirely made from cardboard boxes, and Adventures in Science on 2nd Nov. Or for a children vs adult gameshow hosted by a French comedian head to the Story Museum on Sat 25th for Enfants Terribles. (We recommend the Story Museum all week long - there are lots of extra events on top of their regular exhibitions, and they’ve just won the JM Barrie award!)
For slightly older children, we recommend the escape rooms at Escape Hunt in the Westgate centre. There is still availability for next week, and we love the Curse of the Pharaoh for testing family fun! Or there’s always the cinemas, with Gabby’s Dollhouse, The Bad Guys 2, Paranorman, and more, showing in the coming weeks.
Want more?
Want more spooky offerings? See our Halloween blog.
Want more of everything? See our full events listings! Plus there are all the museums, libraries, stately homes, Cogges and Fairytale Farms, and many other places we haven't included here. It's a busy old county!
Or if you’re all at home and want a reason to get the paints out, we’d like to direct you to two different art competitions: Sunningwell School of Art have an Arty Animals competition open at the moment. And at DI towers we’d like to see your pictures of fireworks, to win tickets to the big Round Table display at South Park. Sorry grownups, these are both open to young people only!