HÖSTLOV ACTIVITIES

THAT ARE ALL FREE!!

Since early 2016 a huge portion of the cultural centres and museums in Stockholm are now free to enter. For a full list read the article published by the Local in Feb 2016 “Swedish museums start opening up for free.” During the holidays many of these museums run specialist pedagogical programmes for pre-school and school children. A lot of them will have a halloween theme or autumnal vibe and it is a great way of introducing kids into the City’s cultural scene. Be mindful, some of the state and city run museums are closed on Mondays. Be sure to check with the museums opening times before committing.

You can check out which museums are open every day using our Stockholm Weekly Planner. This year, we are delighted to recommend Etnografiska’s Skelettverkstad, celebrating Dia de Muertos

Tyresta National Park is 20km south of Stockholm, approx 30 minutes by car and an hour by train from T-Central. It is a diverse landscape of forest, wetlands and lakes. The Tyresta National Park is almost completely surrounded by the Tyresta National Reserve, famous for its broad-leaved woods, buildings of cultural interest and private farmland.

Because of its diverse nature, Tyresta is perfect for rainbow walks. It doesn’t matter where you walk to, or how long or short you take, the purpose of the rainbow walk is to pick something from nature that represents every colour in a rainbow.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Good Luck!

Stockholm’s version of Botanic Gardens, Bergianska Trädgården, is hosting a crafty Höstlov. ‘Kul med kottar’, is a crafty event for those drawn to the outdoors and skogspyssel. Take a turn around the gardens and discover the beautiful seasonal changes taking place throughout the holiday seasons.

Suitable for kids between the ages of 6 – 10.

Firstly, leaf peeping is an American term used to describe the activity of travelling to different parts of America to view and photograph the foliage changing colour.

In Sweden, you don’t have to travel an entire state to do that, just follow the walks around the City National Park. The boundaries of the park start in Ulriksdal and follow south towards Hagaparken and Norra Djurgården. The contrast in Maple and Birch tree foliage at this time is stunniong as the landscape changes towards the wetlands of Bergianska Trädgården. Check out the City National Park website for organised walks or take a fleeting journey and go your own way (see what I did there).

Storytelling for kids in Swedish and in English in Stockholm. Stockholm Stadsbibliotek host age appropriate storytelling sessions in Swedish, and sometimes in English. In Swedish story telling is called ‘sagostund’. If you go to the Stadsbibliotek website you’ll find storytelling sessions all over Stockholm.

Rum för barn at Kulturhuset host storytelling for 3+ years every Wednesday between 4-5pm. All of these you can find on Littlebearabroad’s events calendar.

Lida is another nature reserve or community recreation area in Botkyrka and owned by the municipality. It’s a total delight with 35km of nature, parkland, walks, running tracks, bike tracks and cross-country skiing. The name Lida means ‘slope’ in English so where better to take the pulka’s and hit the snow in the Winter.

The diversity of the parkland and nature serves as a brilliant took to play some awesome forest games. I-Spy for one and hunting animal tracks. Exploring the different trees and bark and discovering new fungus (look, don’t touch!). Perhaps, collecting some souvenirs to bring home and create autumn sensory boards and best of all, conker heaven!

Another short ride from Stockholm is Uppsala. The City of Uppsala is the one of the oldest Cities in Sweden, pre-dating Christianity and believed to be the home of Sweden’s oldest and most respected Viking clans. The Viking Museum, set within the burial mounds of Gamla Uppsala, is another historical and child-friendly gem. To some extent, better than Vikingaliv in Stockholm. Definitely more extensive, and well curated.

It is also home to some pretty brilliant free stuff. In the heart of Uppsala is the English Park, Engelskaparken, named that because of its similarities to English parks. In the middle of the park is Pelle Svanslös play park. Pelle Svanslös is a well known children’s story about a tail-less cat. The author was from Uppsala and so was the cat. The play park is fantastic and it doesn’t matter whether or not you know the stories.

In the centre of the city is another Littlebearabroad recommended find, Biotopia Uppsala. Discover Upplands biodiversity and natural landscape through Biotopia’s scenescapes and theatre-like displays, interactive science activities and underwater experiments.

Hellasgården on the outskirts of the Nacka nature reserve it claims to be 15 minutes from downtown Slussen. If you add 2 kids, a buggy and life’s daily survival kit make that 35 minutes and it’s more accurate. Still very easy to get to by bus and car. There is also a cafe with lunch and fika items. There are dirt tracks, forest walks and more.

Try and pick up at least 6 different types of leaf before you go home. Once you are home, you can create rubbings of them, collages, or leaf people (if you have the creative foresight).

Whilst you’ve done all these nature walks and reserve trails, you might have picked up a few acorns along the way. Why not try and seed an acorn! Acorns drop from early September all the way through to December. For the best chance of seeding them successfully pick them fresh from the tree (when no-one is looking).

All you need is a small sandwich bag, a damp piece of kitchen roll and a dark cupboard. You might also need the patience for a week or two. Wet the kitchen roll, don’t ring it out but don’t have it sopping, either. Place the acorn in the middle of the wet kitchen roll and fold the kitchen roll around the acorn, like a handkerchief. Place the kitchen roll/acorn bundle into the plastic sandwich bag and put in the dark cupboard. Wait for two weeks. Hopefully, by then you’ll see the very start of a root sprouting from the bottom of the acorn. As soon as this is visible, tranfer is to a very thin necked vase or bottle so the acorn can sit out of water in the neck.

What is more comforting than curling up on the sofa with blankets, pillows, warm drinks and reading your favourite book? The concept of Fredagsmysig (‘Friday cosy’) doesn’t just have to happen on a Friday! During the holidays it can happen every day of the week. Make like a winter björn and start that hibernation phase in style.

Did you know that in recent years, Höstlov has been called ‘läslov’ to encourage school age children to spend the holidays reading books and getting to know their favourite characters.