Beach Activities that Kids will Love

The beach has so much to offer families it’s not surprising that so many of us choose to holiday close to one! Aside from the obligatory sandcastle building and paddling there are many other fun and creative beach activities that the kids will love. They might even give you a bit of time to relax too!

Living on the South Coast of the UK we tend do a lot of beach trips. There is so much to explore and enjoy about the beach environment and I find the girls are pretty good at making their own fun. But if you’re planning to spend a fair amount of time at the beach, like we did recently on our holiday to Cornwall, then having a few beach activities up your sleeve can be helpful! Here are some of our favourite ways to have fun and make wonderful memories at the beach.

Pebble Art

Without a doubt the best beach-based activity I packed for our recent holiday was our Posca Paint marker pens. The girls spent hours over the week decorating pebbles that we found on the beach. Miss 5 told us one of the highlights of her week was when we had a big pebble painting session together! I have to agree it was a lot of fun!

Here are just some of the pebbles we made! Miss 16 months was desperate to join in too so I let her loose on her own pebble with our paint sticks, which she loved! If you have a very little one paint sticks are a great alternative to Posca Pens for their first pebble painting experience. In fact paint sticks are brilliant for lots of art projects and are one of our favourite recent finds!

The brilliant thing about Posca Paint pens is that they are mess-free so I wasn’t worried about using them in our holiday home. They are also easy to transport and use on the beach itself- a brilliant activity when the kids are starting to get tired or a need some down time. And if the beach you’re visiting doesn’t have pebbles you could always decorate some seashells instead.

Rock Pooling

Some of our happiest holiday memories as a family involve rock pooling at the beach. Firstly using a net is universally exciting to a kid! Then when they actually catch something it’s beyond exciting! I love rock pooling because it encourages those awe and wonder moments and forces children to slow down and appreciate the wonder of the natural world. It’s also a great opportunity to develop patience and perseverance!

Rock pooling does require a few bits of equipment but nothing too expensive. We found our new telescopic nets brilliant. They are much easier to transport to the beach and take up so little room! A clear bucket is also useful so that they can observe what they have found easily, as is a magnifying glass for taking a closer look. I also highly recommend taking a sea life identification book to help out with all those inevitable questions!

Beach Art

Beach art is one of the simplest beach activities but provides so much opportunity to be creative! Whether you’re on a pebbly beach, stony beach or surrounded by beautiful shells you can create amazing pictures and patterns with seaside treasures. The proper word for this is ‘transient art’, in other words a non-permanent piece of art work. There’s something so lovely about using natural materials in this way and being at the beach gives children the opportunity to work on a large scale if that want to.

Kite Flying

The more time I spend with my kids the more I realize it’s the simple activities that bring the most joy. Flying a kite is definitely one of those activities. We’ve had a few kites in our time and all have died a death when the frame has snapped. To avoid a repeat of this we went for a parafoil kite this time. Parafoil kites contain no rigid frame but instead have pockets that fill with air enabling it to fly. They are brilliant for taking to the beach because the majority are compact and easily fit in a beach bag. They also require zero building time or repairs of a frame that keeps coming apart! We bought ours from Amazon and it was really easy to get it in the air- even Miss 3 was able to fly it!

But before enjoying the beach activities don't forget to board a Pirate Cruise in St. Pete Beach FL. You will make life time memories for sure.