Heaps of holiday fun on offer in Tauranga
Activities cater for the creative and the sporty
Parents and guardians need not fear the school holidays. Tauranga has myriad events and activities on offer to keep the kids entertained.
In the Tauranga Art Gallery’s daily Art Hunt, which runs from 10am to 4pm, participants can hunt through the gallery for art clues and work towards a small prize.
Marketing co-ordinator Emma Bossley says the Art Hunt is a fun way for families to spend time together exploring the gallery.
“The Art Hunt is inspired by two new exhibitions, Christina Pataialii: Proximity and Distance and the Acorn Foundation Junior Art Awards, which showcases a diverse range of exceptional creative talent from our youth.
“Visiting the gallery is a great way to foster a lifelong love of the arts,” says Bossley.
The gallery also has printable online resources for families to get arty together, including creative projects using art materials and tools from around the house.
“Using everyday materials from around your home is a great way to recycle and create something fun, interesting and unique,” she says.
“We have ideas for materials that could be used for drawing, painting and making sculptures.”
Visit the art gallery’s website for more information.
The gallery is also holding a school holiday programme. Week one focuses on fantastical clay plates and week two is about abstract painting on canvas. Spots can be booked on its website.
Meanwhile, Remaker Space has a range of workshops available, including creating a planter box, textiles, stop-motion animation and more.
Remaker Space creative administrator Alyssa Reed says about 12 workshops are going on and people should book quickly at the Remaker website.
“We encourage young people to come if they are wanting to be creative, get their hands dirty, and learn new skills,” she says.
“It’s a great starting point if you want to experience doing creative things out of school, show more initiative and make new friends interested in the same things.”
Tauranga City Libraries also has a range of events to keep the kids entertained and learning.
Activities that don’t need to be registered for include creating a bouquet for someone special, making an Anzac poppy in remembrance of those who have served in
‘ Using everyday materials from around your home is a great way to recycle and create something fun, interesting and unique. Tauranga Art Gallery marketing co-ordinator Emma Bossley
wartime and creating a door tag to swing from your bedroom door.
Activities that do need registration include Awesome Autumn for ages 3-6, Lego Fun for ages 4-10, Keva Building Challenge for all ages, Crazy Librarian Escape Room Experience for ages 11-14, and Code Creator: Tilt Controller Challenge for ages 10-14.
For more information, dates, times, locations and booking links, go to the libraries website.
Families can also unlock hidden science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Stem) challenges and tasks within Tauranga’s CBD, using the Stem Wana’s Stem Explorer Trail, an app experience made by a group of local young people.
Participants can complete challenges as an individual or a team, explore the CBD and win prizes.
Founder of Stemfest Tia Lush says it’s a free web app, available at stemexplorertrail.nz.
“It’s to encourage our community to support local businesses in Tauranga’s CBD, and is a great activity to do together as a family.”
Stem Wana is a charity and organises the award-winning Stemfest which returns in October.
Craniums Tauranga manager Kelly Shepherd is excited to have school holiday activities back for the first time after lockdown.
She says there’ll be an activity space in the shop with free activities for children every day.
Each week there are also two free, supervised activities from 11am to 1pm with limited spaces.
For the first week’s supervised activities, Monday is Craniums Reward Passport Launch and Wednesday is Straw Shooter Rockets.
In the second week, Tuesday is Simple Sew Finger Puppets and Thursday is Pompom Monsters.
“It’s nice to get back into it again and, all going to plan, we will be doing them every school holidays,” says Shepherd.
For more information go to the
Craniums Tauranga Facebook page.
For those children who love sports and staying active, the Bayactive school holiday activities at Trustpower Arena include holiday tumble time, a basketball holiday programme, and a football holiday programme. For dates, pricing and to book, go to bayactive.co.nz.
Families can also enjoy the Dreamworks animated motion picture Madagascar coming to life on stage with Madagascar The Musical.
It follows all your favourite “cracka-lackin’ friends” as they escape from their home in New York’s Central Park Zoo.
The international stage set and costumes from Madagascar The Musical’s world tour are in New Zealand with an all-local cast of professional actors performing at Trustpower Baypark Arena from April 23 to April 25. Tickets from eventfinda.
In the school holidays lead-up, Sport Bay of Plenty’s regional play systems lead Steph Reichardt was encouraging parents, grandparents and caregivers to allow their children to play and get involved.
“There is definitely no age restriction on play. In fact, intergenerational play can be the most memorable. Having grandad play in the sandpit, or nan teach knucklebones, would be a great experience for all kids.
“As we age, play tends to get more structured and more rulebound, let’s let the kids make the rules and be open to having fun.
“We, as adults, are the enablers of play. If we say yes a little more often, and actually take time to listen to the kids then I’m positive more play will be enabled.”
Reichardt said play provided a great opportunity for kids to take risks and learn to communicate how they were feeling.
“It is a wonderful way to distract from the pressures of work and school and it’s something we can do individually or with others.
“It is important in building children’s resilience and fundamental movement skills.”