If a tropical vacation isn’t in the cards for spring break this year, finding fun in your own backyard can be easy and exciting. Embracing the seasonal transition can inspire lots of simple household activities from vegetable garden prep, to closet organizing, to local outdoor adventures like biking, picnics, and foraging in nature. Here are five ideas for a fun family spring break right in your own backyard.

Plan Your Summer Garden

It might not be planting time yet, but there’s still a chance for kids to dig in the dirt and get their hands dirty. Science even supports the idea that letting kids play in the dirt has positive benefits from calming their nerves to improving their microbiome.

Make an activity out of browsing a seed catalogue, creating a collage of your vegetable wish-list, and setting up a starter tray in your home. It’s as simple as buying a small bag of potting soil and a few pouches of seeds. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers make great starters. You can even buy a starter pot-maker to make little pots out of recycled newspaper.

Get more tips on starting your garden.

“Travel” Through the Library

Who says travel only happens on planes, trains, and automobiles? Take a trip to your local library and invite the kids to choose a book on a foreign country.

Use that as a jumping off point for a theme day. You could make a meal of dishes from the region (involving the kids in the cooking, of course), learn a few expressions to say to each other throughout the day, spend an afternoon tracing outlines of the country map and colouring them in. Added bonus — your kids get a geography lesson while they’re pretend-travelling to other countries.

Get Outside

It might still be too cold for a long afternoon picnic, but you can make the most of clear days by having a morning or afternoon tea time in the park. Pack a special snack and a waterproof mat for the occasion, and enjoy the fresh air with simple outdoor games like frisbee, tag, or kite-flying.

You could even collect fallen leaves, pinecones, and rocks, for painting and crafting with later. Don’t forget to invite some friends!

Get on Wheels

Spring Break is the perfect time to get the bikes tuned up, make sure helmets still fit, and start building up little ones’ stamina for those long summer bike rides.

Find a map of local trails and highlight which ones are nearby and kid-friendly. Plan short regular outings when the days are dry and the kids have lots of energy to burn.

“Konmari” Your Kids’ Closets

Spring doesn’t reserve its sprouting for flowers! Most children seem to grow an inch or two by the time spring break rolls around. In keeping with Marie Kondo’s “konmari” organizing craze, why not get the kids involved in their own wardrobe?

Take an hour or two to go through their closets with them and see what still fits from last summer. You could even create a mini-fashion show as a rainy day activity. Sort through what’s outgrown, make a list of what’s needed, and teach the kids how to fold and stack their own clothes. You’ll not only be scratching things off your to-do list, but giving them the satisfaction of shiny clean rooms! 

Get more tips on decluttering and home organization.

However you spend your spring break, we wish you a fun time with your family!