In my last post I wrote about the challenge of keeping kids entertained at home during the Summer holidays, but what if you want to take a trip out? Not all activities have to cost the earth. For example our local shopping centre Westfield Derby runs kids events throughout the summer, all of which are free! For some of the events, such as craft activities you just turn up on the day. For others (like character meet and greets) you need to obtain a timed wristband from the concierge desk on the morning of the event. Westfield operate shopping centres throughout the country so it’s always worth checking out the website of your local mall to see what’s on.

We toddled along to Westfield Derby yesterday to meet SpongeBob Squarepants in the flesh/sponge. As you might imagine all my children were very excited at the prospect of meeting SpongeBob in ‘person’, so they prepared a short selection of jokes to share with him. Jokes such as:

Why did the hamburger cross the road? To Ketch-up with the fries!

Why did the Octopus cross the road? To get to the other tide!

Knock Knock! Who’s there? Fish! Fish who? Bless you!

That’s some comedy gold right there!

SpongeBob wobbled about in appreciation (his nose spun in circles!) before pausing to take a photo with the kids.

They all received a sheet of small SpongeBob stickers from NickToons, where SpongeBob is having a ‘Pant-tastic Summer’ on the channel everyday from 9am. See Nicktoons.co.uk for details.

As we left SpongeBob gave them all a larger sticker so they could proudly display their visit to the world!

For More information

For more wonderful events ranging from indoor shows through to craft activities visit Westfield Derby online.

Or you can contact the Westfield team on Twitter, or through Facebook.