Summer Hols Week 4 ➡️ Free London Days Out With Curious Kids

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This week London is stuffed with free family adventures: meet bees, hunt bats and hold reptiles; craft sock puppets, bravery medals and island dioramas; play your way through a retro gaming archive; and take a last step onto a dragon’s stage. Add cinema under the stars, Guards-themed fun, and the chance to bag Open House tickets, and the city is yours to explore, whatever your bank balance says.

We’re back from a sunshine-filled week in the Lake District. Whilst YMCA Daycamps kept the kids busy, we snuck in a string of date days, from osprey spotting on Esthwaite Water to wild swims in secret tarns. We picnicked in the world’s oldest topiary garden, mixed a lakeside walk with a historic steamer trip on Ullswater, sipped delicious iced coffee in Beatrix Potter’s own garden, and topped it all off with big-sky views from Loughrigg Fell.

Back home we took Museum Girl on the Taskmaster Trail at Audley End, racing through silly challenges in the gardens to outscore each other - and it was included with our CSSC membership.

Now, read on for more free ideas for all.

London’s best family-friendly museum days, theatre shows, and cultural outings - curated for busy parents. If you love this newsletter, so will your friends. Pass it on!

Free Summer Holiday Activities: Week 4 (18-24 August 2025)

Here’s my pick of completely free family events this week. All are drop-in, unless otherwise stated.

🐝 Buzz into Plight of the Bumblebee at Forest Gate Community Garden to meet these vital pollinators up close, enjoy hands-on activities and talks, and pick up practical tips on how to become a bumblebee hero (18 Aug; all ages; book).

🌿 Peek inside the rarely opened Museum of Life Sciences at Guy’s Campus to explore curious specimens and join family activities from pot pourri making to dinosaur games and colouring (18 Aug).

🔣 Design your own pictogram and badge at Japan House, turning everyday ideas into bold symbols inspired by Japanese life and culture (18, 24, 28 & 31 Aug; ages 6+).

🦇 Go on an Evening Bat Walk for Young People and Families with Islington Ecology Centre through Freightliners Farm, exploring Arundel Square and Barnsbury Wood as guides help you spot and learn about these incredible night-time creatures (19 Aug; ages 5+; book).

🐍 Meet a Reptile Day at Beam Parklands lets you get up close to snakes and other creatures with experts on hand, plus family fun from Punch & Judy to hands-on wildlife activities (19 Aug; all ages).

💦 Splash into Discovery Days: Wild About Water at Hyde Park Learning Centre, with pond dipping, frog and toad origami, bird spotting and more outdoor fun for families (19-21 Aug; all ages).

🎖️ Make your own clay creation at Marvellous Victorian Medals at the National Army Museum, taking inspiration from historic soldiers’ awards (19-22 Aug; ages 5+; first come, first served).

🎪 Step back in time to Victorian Vauxhall with circus skills, hula hooping, face painting and live fun from the Bubble Man and Acro Chaps in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (20 Aug; all ages).

🧦 Create your own sock puppet with Bunny & Gonk at Costa Del Croydon, with family sessions to design, personalise and take home a brand-new puppet friend (20 Aug; all ages; book/drop in).

🗝️ Unearth medieval secrets at the Museum of the Order of St John’s Secrets of the Crypt, where you can handle archaeological finds, craft your own from clay and meet St John Ambulance Cadets (20 Aug; ages 3-10).

🏝️ Create your own island diorama at Queen’s House, imagining galleon ships, distant shores and the characters you might meet in your miniature 3D scene (20 Aug; all ages). Plus Under 5s storytelling on 22 Aug.

🎬 Watch The Princess Diaries under open skies at Merchant Square’s free outdoor cinema, with deckchairs, picnic spots and street food stalls by the canal (20 Aug; rated PG).

🇬🇧 Dress up in a guard’s uniform, paint your own soldier, fold origami guards and decorate biscuits at The Guards Museum. Plus live music, garden games and relaxing deckchairs (20-22 Aug; all ages; book activities / some drop in). Part of Westminster Inside Out.

📚 Cut, stick and collage your own zine in Drop-in Design: Zine Together at the V&A South Kensington, using bold textures and images from the Design and Disability exhibition to dream up joyful spaces for play, rest and togetherness (20-22 & 27-29 Aug; ages 5+).

🛡️ Print your own coat of arms at Enigmatic Emblems at Sir John Soane’s Museum inspired by the museum’s historic emblems and their current artist in residence (21 Aug; ages 4+).

🧸 Travel with teddies from the Great Wall of China to Roman mosaics, enjoy picnics and planting, and make an insect hotel to take home in Little Feet: Teddies on Holiday at the British Museum (21 Aug; ages 0-5; book museum entry).

🔱 Discover ancient Egyptian writing in Hieroglyphs at Bruce Castle Museum, then use gold paint to design your own cartouche-style name plate (21 Aug; ages 6-10).

🦋 Craft wearable butterfly wings from cardboard and colourful fabric scraps at The Hub in Bromley in this imaginative family workshop (21 Aug; ages 4+; book).

🪁 Build, imagine and play with Assemble Play at St-Giles-in-the-Fields churchyard, with free lunch included (21-22 Aug).

🕹️ Dive into late-20th-century tech at Kingston University’s Archive of Retro Computing with playable home microcomputers, vintage Sega, Nintendo and Atari consoles, classic games like Pac-Man and Sonic, and a chance to try retro programming yourself (21-28 Aug; all ages).

🏙️ Look up as parkour pros leap across Woolwich rooftops in Above and Beyond, with live beats from Roma Yagnik and a soaring finale by Citizens of the World Choir, kicking off G+DIF 2025 (22 Aug).

🐉 It’s your last chance to experience Thunder, Crackle and Magic by artist Monster Chetwynd at Tate Modern, where you can dress up, animate puppets and explore three fantastical Turbine Hall sets from dragon charming to elemental challenges (until 25 Aug; ages 5+).

Free weekend fun: Family Day: Oyster Shell Art at William Morris Gallery (23 Aug); Greenwich Fair (23-24 Aug); Greenford Quay Canal Festival (24 Aug); and Children’s Day Parade at Notting Hill Carnival (24 Aug).

And here’s some to book ahead:

🏛️ Bookings for Open House Festival (13-21 Sep) open on 20 Aug, giving you the chance to explore some of London’s most intriguing buildings and hidden spaces with family-friendly tours, trails and behind-the-scenes adventures.

And it is your very last chance to enter the ballots for Open House, which close Mon 18 Aug at 12pm. Me and (some of) my followers have won tickets for BT Tower in previous years - my tip is to enter as many time slots as you can!

Need still more ideas? Dive into my big roundup of 100+ epic things to do with kids in London this summer, packed with free and paid adventures for the whole break.

I’ll be back next weekend with a few more ideas to see you through to those school gates reopening.

Until then, enjoy exploring!

Please check listings before heading out. Events can change or be cancelled at short notice; and, despite my best efforts, sometimes I make mistakes.