How to create an interactive school holiday planner PDF.

Do you remember your school holidays when you were a child? Who knew there was a lot of planning behind the scenes during school holidays, even if you stayed at home? These days, with four school terms in both Australian and New Zealand school systems, and everyone’s busy lives, it can sometimes seem like you’ve only just finished one set of school holidays and another one is about to begin. Make it easier on yourself, and fun and interesting for your kids, and create an interactive PDF school holiday template to plan each day’s activities.

What you’ll learn

• Factors to take into account for school holiday planning
• School holiday activities to consider including
• Creating an interactive holiday timetable with and for your kids
• Tips for creating for creating a school holiday schedule template

Factors to take into account when creating a school holiday planner.

Creating a school holiday schedule involves more than just thinking about what the kids are going to do.

The time off that kids have during school holidays can affect and involve everyone in the household in some way. Oftentimes people outside of your home are also involved, such as extended family and other people who may be involved in childcare for your children.

You also need to consider factors such as the length of the school holidays, the ages of the children, any work commitments you have, and any specific aspirations you may have for the holiday period.

School holiday activities to consider in a schedule.

School holiday activities should, ideally, be a balanced mix of relaxation, learning, and fun. Activities during school holidays should also be age-appropriate, suit the time of year and season, and the length of the school break.

Things to consider incorporating in a school holiday schedule template include —

• Time to rest and relax.
  Students and school children of all ages need a bit of downtime to rest and recharge — it is a holiday and a break, and that means there does need to be time to just chill. So, don’t be tempted to plan each day with activities to cover every minute of every day from dawn to dusk!

• Favourite recreational and creative pastimes.
  Include time and opportunities for kids on holiday to explore and engage with any recreational activities they already enjoy doing. This might be a sport, hobby, music, art, crafts, or other activity that you know brings them joy.

• Ways to keep learning on holiday.
  Think about activities that keep children using skills they’re learning and developing while they’re on holiday. This might include books and educational games. It could also be everyday activities like, for example, learning how to cook with you and calculate and measure ingredients.
  
• Family time.
  Find time in the school holidays to dedicate to family time, even if you are still working. If you can, do activities together during the school holidays. Family bonding activities during the school holidays could be as simple as catching up with the kids when you get home, sharing a little about your day at work, and your kids telling you what they did for the day.

• Social time.
  Allow time and opportunities for kids on holiday to mix and mingle with their friends and others of the same age and peer group — whether virtually or in person.

• Balanced mental and physical activities.
  Include time for exercise, sports activities, or just activities that encourage physical movement and getting out in the fresh air, such as playing in a park or going for a walk to maintain a healthy balance between physical and mental health. Set some guidelines and boundaries around screen time and encourage a mix of screen-based and non-screen-based activities.

Create an interactive holiday timetable with your kids.

Involve your kids, depending on their age, as much as you can in making an interactive school holiday schedule. If they’ve helped plan what they’re going to do during their school holidays, they’re more likely to stay engaged with what has been planned.

Make the schedule you create interactive and fun — you can do that with PDF files.

• Add colour.
• Insert pictures and videos.
• Use checkboxes against activities that they can tick off.
• Include fields and spaces for them to comments or notes about the activities they’re going to do.

There are several ways you can create a PDF school holiday template.

• Use Adobe Acrobat to create a new PDF file from scratch.
• Convert a Word file to PDF online.
• Convert an Excel file to PDF online.
• Convert a PowerPoint file to PDF online.
• Convert image files to PDF online.
• Customize a free scheduling template from Adobe Express Templates and make it your own.

Your kids can easily access their interactive school holiday schedule PDF with their devices using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or via Adobe Acrobat Online.

Tips for creating a school holiday schedule template.

Some tips to help you create a school holiday schedule PDF template and achieve that balance of fun, recreation, and learning include —

• Be flexible.
  Just like anything you might plan in life, be flexible and prepared for the unexpected during school holidays. Also, it’s great to have a timetable and schedule to keep everyone on track and organized during school holidays — but do allow for some spontaneity and flexibility with your plans. If you wake up one morning and think it’s a great day to do something completely different with your children, do it. You might create a shared and happy holiday memory to last a lifetime.

• Be realistic.
  Be realistic about how much your kids will do in a day. Don’t try to pack too much in. Create a structure to help guide them through the day’s activities, but remember they need some downtime and daydream time as well to recharge their minds and bodies during their school break.

• Be creative.
  Stuck for ideas of what to do? Or on a limited budget? Get creative with activities you can do at home and in your immediate neighbourhood. For example, make tents with sheets and furniture, or go for a walk together around the neighbourhood and play eye-spy. Even household and garden chores can be turned into family activities, with a shared meal at the end.

• Be inclusive.
  Kids like to know what to expect but they also need a little bit of autonomy, especially as they start to get older. Include all family members and your children, if they’re old enough, in the planning of their holiday schedule, and then have it in a format that everyone can see and access.

Related content.

Looking for more ideas? Some of our other articles to help you create and use PDFs at home with your family during holiday periods include —

• PDFs for Travel Planning: Getting Ready for Your Family Holiday
• How to Make an Interactive PDF
• Cloud PDF Storage and File Sharing — Access Documents Anywhere, Anytime