We’ve pulled together five things to make the last few weeks of the summer holidays totally worthwhile.
Whether you’re getting out of the country entirely, immersing yourself in art exhibitions, engaging in a month long toy shop party or rolling your sleeves up for a bit of pasta making, diarise all of it. Here’s what we’re loving this month.
DESIGN YOUR HOME WITH THIS Little Artists, Big Dreams x Desenio
Ever wondered whether your child’s felt-tip masterpiece deserves a frame rather than the recycling? Desenio has arrived to vindicate you entirely. The Swedish print house has handed the brushes to actual children, no trends, no rules, no grown-up muttering about staying inside the lines, and turned the results into a proper art collection. Little Artists, Big Dreams was co-created with kids in Desenio’s Stockholm atelier, and every piece keeps the wonky, wild-coloured, gloriously unbothered energy of its small creator. At a moment when so much “art” is being churned out by machines, this is a whole collection celebrating the one thing an algorithm can’t fake, the way a child draws simply because they feel like it. It’s also doing good. The collection is a partnership with the World Childhood Foundation, and 10% of every sale goes towards the charity’s work protecting children from violence and abuse.
ENJOY A MORNING HERE FRAMELESS, The Colour Monster Goes to School
Anna Llenas’ The Colour Monster is a fixture in most households with little children, largely because it does the near-impossible: it gets tiny children to actually name what they’re feeling instead of simply hurling a shoe about it. Now the little monster is back at FRAMELESS – London’s biggest immersive art space – and this time he’s starting school. Which, if you have a three-to-seven-year-old staring down September, may feel uncomfortably close to home. Llenas’ illustrations are blown up to full scale across the Blank Canvas Gallery, with animation, colour and spatial sound turning the book into a larger than life place you can actually walk around inside. The clever bit, and a first for FRAMELESS, is that the children don’t just watch – each one colours in their own Colour Monster, picking the shades that match exactly how they’re feeling that day, and then watches it appear on the gallery walls with everyone else’s. No two visits look the same, which is exactly the point. It runs on a gentle ten-minute loop, so nobody’s being marched anywhere, and you can stay and go round again as many times as your patience (and theirs) allows. It’s a reassuring way to coax the big back-to-school feelings into the open before term goes and does it for you.
BOOK THIS LAST MINUTE HURRAH Kimpton Los Monteros, Marbella
If you’re plotting one last hurrah before term resets everything, Kimpton Los Monteros in Marbella has become very good at keeping every age group happy at once, which is the a mighty trick. The children get the Little Monteros Kids Club, read: Mediterranean crafts, treasure hunts, science experiments, morning-to-afternoon and Friday evenings too. There are three pools, all set at shallow-ish depths so nobody’s fretting about the deep end, plus cabanas for the important business of cocktails and relaxing. Evenings are a rooftop open-air cinema at Escondido (La La Land, Mamma Mia and friends, under the stars, popcorn included), a barbecue dinner at Jara with Flamenco every Tuesday, and, for the household diplomats, a weekly backgammon social. There’s complimentary padel too, if anyone’s feeling athletic.
LIVE OUT YOUR TOY SHOP DREAMS HERE Hamleys at Regent Street & Westfield
Some months Hamleys is simply a toy shop, but this August it’s closer to a full-blown itinerary. The Regent Street flagship and Westfield stores are running the biggest summer programme the shop has ever put on, and the vast majority of it is free. There’s the first ever Bluey space at Regent Street complete with Bluey and Bingo, storytelling sessions and free Bluey ears for the first 200 through the door (set an alarm); and Paddington also takes his turn. Beyond the character diary, there’s the gloriously messy Gootopia slime workshop on the third floor, the open-top Puppet Party Bus tour that’s been extended because everyone loved it, and, a Silent Disco Shopping Experience at Westfield on 29 August, where you browse the shop through wireless headphones and a live DJ. It’s a rainy-day insurance policy, filed away for the inevitable moment the weather turns.
ENJOY THIS ACTIVITY AS A FAMILY The Underground Cookery School
Twenty-three years ago, Matthew Kemp stood on a London pavement in his chef whites handing out leaflets for a walk-in cookery class. Corporate demand from the likes of Bloomberg and Microsoft rather took over after that, and the public classes vanished. This month, at long last, they’re back, at the school’s kitchen near Old Street. And there’s a whole roster of family friendly cooking classes. The aim is to raise a generation who love cooking as much as they love eating. Kids aged 8+ can roll their sleeves up right beside you and you can cook together. It’s proper, hands-on family bonding, you chop, they stir, someone gets flour everywhere (from pasta to pizza to cheesecake to sushi) and then you all sit down to eat something you made as a team.
We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.
Any Questions or Tips to add?