Wonderful, aren’t they, your little darlings? Which is a stroke of the very best luck because, oh look, it’s the school holidays – a minimum of six weeks stretching before you, filled only with their gentle demands for attention and ice cream.

Don’t phone the inlaws just yet, however, because we might just preserve your sanity. Here is the A-Z of keeping kids (and parents) amused: scores of brilliant activities, from abseiling to zip-wiring. Use liberally and before you know it, you’ll be buying pencil cases all over again...

A is for ABSEILING With a menu of activities that reads like an A-Z of boredom-busters in its own right, Camp Beaumont (01263 823000, www.campbeaumont.co.uk ) has summer day camps for 3-to 16-year-olds in 12 schools across London, Kent, Berkshire, Surrey and Essex. From abseiling to wall-climbing and quadbiking, activity packages cost £35 per day, or £198 for five days; 9.30am-4.30pm (drop-off from 8.30am, pickup until 5.30pm). Outward Bound (0870 513 4227, www.outwardbound.org.uk ) has family weekends (Friday 5pm-Sunday 5pm; ages 8-80) for £145 (adults), £70 (under16s), full-board, in Ullswater, Cumbria; Loch Eil, Highlands; and Aberdovey, Gwynedd.

B is for BUG Wilderness Wood (01825 830509, www.wildernesswood.co.uk ), 61 acres of deepest, darkest, forested Sussex near Uckfield, hosts a guided bug hunt (August 10, 10.30am-noon; ages 6-11, £5.15, adults £3.25), forest survival courses (August 3 and 22, 10am-noon; ages 8-13, £6.80, adults £3.25), teddy bears’ picnics (July 27, August 7, 21 and 28, 2.45pm-4.15pm; ages 3-6, £5.15), and a moonlit moth walk (August 31, 8pm-9.45pm; ages 6-15, £4.20, adults £6.80). And with 50 species of animals, birds, reptiles and creepy-crawlies, Camperdown Wildlife Centre (01382 431818, www.dundee city.gov.uk/camperdown ) has a hands-on Creepy Crawly fortnight (July 21-August 5, 10am-4pm; ages 3-16, £2.60, adults £3.20), starring tarantulas, lizards, snakes and cockroaches.

C is for CANOE Launching from Bow Creek at Tuckenhay or Longmarsh Slip in Totnes, Canoe Adventures (01803 865301, www.canoeadventures.co.uk ) in Devon has a range of family-friendly canoeing options on the Dart, including a four- to five-hour tidal drift by 12-seater canoe, a Canoe Storytell with campfire on the shore, and even a Dart by Moonlight paddle. All trips cost £17; under3s free. In Hay-on-Wye in Herefordshire, Paddles & Pedals (01497 820604, www.paddlesandpedals.co.uk ) has kayaks (£20 per day) and four-seater open canoes (£55 per day) for hire on the Wye; prices include pickup downstream.

D is for DIVING Normally off limits to under10s, but now eight-year-olds can have a taste of scuba heaven in a Bubble Maker try-a-dive session (£40 for two children), available in a dozen Padi dive-centres around the UK, from Sunderland to Sussex, through Lastminute.com . Sessions last about two hours, diving in swimming pools to a depth of 6ft. Lastminute.com has a slew of other summer day-out solutions, including a Junior Off-Roading or Junior Ferrari day (£75) at Prestwold Hall in Leicestershire, where ages 12 and up can drive an Isuzu Rodeo or hot hatch.

E is for EXTREME SPORTS The Rip Curl Boardmasters (020 8789 6655, www.ripcurlboardmasters.com ) crashes into Newquay in Cornwall this summer (August 6-12). Highlights of the high-octane week are the £62,000-prize-purse Pro Men’s event (free to watch) on Fistral Beach, and one of the biggest skateboarding competitions in Europe (August 11-12; also free). On Watergate Bay, the Unleashed music festival (0870 060 0100; Friday £30, Saturday £25, combined tickets £49.50) headlines with Ash, Paolo Nutini and Guillemots; Extreme Academy (01637 860543, www.watergatebay.co.uk ), also here, has tuition (£12; from £35/day) in surfing, kitesurfing, wave-skiing and land-boarding.

F is for FAT CONTROLLER Ever-beaming, Thomas the Tank Engine will be busy over the holidays, with www. thomasandfriends.com showing links to all 22 heritage railways he’ll be visiting. Kicking off today with a four-mile wheeze from Brechin to Bridge of Dun in Angus (01356 622992, www.caledonianrailway.co.uk ; ages 3-15, £6 return, adults £7; departures 10.30am-3.30pm), the timetable concludes with a panting limp along the Dean Forest Railway in Worcestershire (01594 845840, www.deanforestrailway.co.uk ; August 30-September 2, departures 10.45am-4pm; ages 2-16, £5, adults £11).

G is for GUILLEMOT Make that guillemots, plural – Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire has more than 16,000 of them, along with puffins, kittiwakes and fulmars, turning the cliffs into a pungent cacophony of shrieks and wails. You’ll have to hurry: by August they’re gone; your consolation, the grey seals that pup here in early September, plus the quarter of a million nesting Manx shearwaters, who hunt after dark in endless clouds of raucous chatter. Until this year you had to be a warden to see them; now, a farm-hut conversion (£30pp per night, self-catering) lets you in on the magic. Daily crossings (first departure 10am, last return 4pm; under16s £6, adults £8), landing fee £6 adults, under16s free. Contact the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales (01656 724100, www.welshwildlife.org ).

H is for HOGWARTS Next Saturday is a huge day for Potter spotters, as bookshops around the globe rip the wrappers off Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It’s too late for tickets to JK’s midnight book-signing at the Natural History Museum, but you’re still in time for a day of magic and storytelling in honour of the winsome wizard, from 11am at Foyles on London’s South Bank (020 7437 5660, www.foyles.co.uk ). From August 11 to 27, the Edinburgh International Book Festival (0845 373 5888, www.edbookfest.co.uk ) includes readings by Jacqueline Wilson (August 12, 10am; ages 8-12, £3.50) and Julia Donaldson (August 19, 10am; ages 5-7, £3.50).

I is for ICE-CLIMBING Just the job if rain is driving your kids up the wall. There are four indoor ice-climbing walls in Britain now – the website www.indoorclimbing.com has links to those in London, Manchester and Leeds, as well as to 160 regular British indoor climbing clubs – but by far the best, with nearly 13,000 sq ft of crampon-hungry ice, is Ice Factor (01855 831100, www.ice-factor.co.uk ), at the foot of the Devil’s Staircase in Kinlochleven, Highlands – it’s the world’s biggest indoor ice wall. One-hour sessions for novice kids (boot size 4+) are from £25pp; regular climbing-wall instruction £15 for children (90 minutes; no age restrictions).

J is for JOUSTING Jesters and jousters pop up across Britain each summer like buboes on a medieval backside, but head, shoulders and blood-spattered breastplate above the rest are those at 16th-century Lulworth Castle (July 22-August 27, closed Saturdays; 0845 450 1054, www.lulworth.com ) in Dorset. Staged with hoof-thundering intensity by the same men who did the horse stunts in Gladiator, King Arthur and First Knight, the jousting shows are on at noon and 3pm, with storytelling and longbow demonstrations in the medieval village from 10am-6pm; ages 5-15, £4, adults £7. Beste of the reste are at Warwick Castle (0870 442 2000, www.warwick-castle.co.uk ; July 21-September 2) and Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire (01453 810332, www.berkeley-castle.com ; July 21-22 and 28-29).

K is for KARTING Lewis Hamilton has a lot to answer for in my house, where the clamour from my boys has led me to www.karting.co.uk , which has links to close to 200 karting centres across the UK, including the Silverstone of karting, Grand Prix Karting at Birmingham Wheels (0121 327 7700, www.grandprixkarting.co.uk ). With four tracks, including a Junior Circuit for ages 8+, prices start from £10 for an 8-minute “arrive and drive” session; alternatively, two karts can be hired for one hour for £99 (2-8 drivers).

L is for LUVVIE Let the little drama queens act up at five(£125), three(£82.50) and half-day (£38.50) workshops in more than 60 venues across London and the home counties over the summer holidays. Run by Perform (0845 400 4000, www.perform.org.uk ), they take ages 4-8, with a performance for family and friends at the end. In Northern Ireland, Derry Playhouse (028 7126 8027, www.derryplayhouse.co.uk ) has a Children’s Arts Festival (July 16-27), with workshops for 4-to 11-year-olds from £25/week. Visit www.dramaclasses.biz for links to holiday drama workshops throughout the UK.

M is for MELA It’s the annual bhangra bonanza again, blitzing an ever-increasing number of city streets and parks with a riot of spices and sounds that makes the Notting Hill Carnival look drab and depressed. London’s Gunnersbury Park (August 12, noon-8pm) and Edinburgh’s Pilrig Park, beneath the castle (September 1-2), are two of the oldest, biggest and best, but Belfast Mela (Botanic Gardens; August 26, noon-6pm) and Hyndburn Mela (Oakhill Park, Accrington; July 29, 12.30pm-7pm) were both surprise hits last year. Visit www.asianimage.co.uk for mela listings and reviews.

N is for NETBALL Knackering your little sports stars into submission is a tried-and-tested summer survival technique, and with more than 30 sports camps in schools from Aberdeen to Bristol, King’s Camps (0870 042 9324, www.kingscamps.org ) does the job for you like Supernanny in a leotard. Choosing from the mundane (netball, football etc) to the mad (Danish longball, ultimate Frisbee), three days (8.15am-5.45pm) cost from £79; ages 5+. EAC (0845 113 0022, www.eacworld.com ) has multisport day camps (ages 5-16; three days from £27/day or £14/half-day) in Surrey, York, Glasgow, Edinburgh and now, for the first time, at Eton; 9am-5pm (drop-off from 7.45am, pickup until 6.30pm).

O is for 007 Release the inner Connery at a Spy Camp, where children aged 10 to 16 will spend a day with surveillance experts, learning how to operate hidden cameras, bugging devices and radio equipment. After a laser-gun shoot-out in the woods, the day ends with a frantic code-breaking race against a ticking time bomb, and a quick-draw pistol race. The camps are run in Manchester, Hemel Hempstead and Cannock Chase by Into the Blue (01959 578100, www.intotheblue.co.uk ; £49). In London, the Science Museum (www.sciencemuseum.org.uk ; 10am-6pm daily; free) has an exhibition, The Science of Spying (adults £10, under16s £8), which explores the skills and tools of a modern secret agent.

P is for POND-DIPPING Nothing says summer like a kid with a net and a jarful of pond-skaters. The Forestry Commission (www.forestry.gov.uk ) is holding four pond-dipping events this summer, on August 8 (10am-noon; all ages free) at Moray Forests, near Kintessack, Moray (01343 820223); on August 9 (1pm-3pm; ages 5+, £3) at Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire (01623 822447); and on August 9 and 28 (throughout the day between 10am and 2.30pm; ages 6+, £1) at Alice Holt Forest (01420 520212), near Bentley, in Surrey. Visit the website for survival days, music workshops, plus cycling, horse-riding and walking events nationwide.

Q is for QUEUE-JUMPING Stealth at Thorpe Park in Surrey (0870 444 4466, www.thorpepark.co.uk) may have show-stopping stats – £12m, 205ft high, 0-80mph in less than two seconds, the second-fastest rollercoaster in Europe – but its queues don’t half make you blink, too. Best £4 your theme-park money can buy this summer? One Fastrack ticket for Stealth, available online only, whipping you to the front of the queue faster than you can say “4.8Gs of G-force, please”. Summer opening hours vary (9.30am-8pm for most of August); 3ft 3in to 11 years from £16, ages 12+, from £24.

R is for ROCKET The Observatory Science Centre in Herstmonceux, East Sussex (01323 832731, www.the-observatory.org ), has rocketry workshops (August 14-15) where kids can make and launch their own water-powered rockets, plus fizzing, banging, kitchen chemistry workshops (August 21-22). Both workshops run 10.30am-4pm; ages 6+ £19.50. There are also Zany Zone craft experiments every Monday for £1 on top of the entry fee (10am-6pm daily; ages 4-15, £5, adults £6.80). The fabulously hands-on Glasgow Science Centre (0871 540 1000, www.glasgowsciencecentre.org; (10am-6pm daily, under16s £4.95, adults £6.95) has paper-aeroplane and hot-air balloon workshops daily throughout summer at no extra cost, plus Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the centre’s Imax cinema.

S is for STARFISH Crabs and cuttlefish, starfish and snails – throw in a stick of rock and they’ll be tossing their GameCubes into the Channel. The Thanet Coast Project (01843 577672, www.thanetcoast.org.uk ) will run two-hour Seashore Safaris throughout summer (free), searching for rock-pool beasties with rangers from the Kent Wildlife Trust, plus four-hour boat trips to seal colonies in Minnis Bay (£20).Cornwall Wildlife Trust (01872 273939, www.cornwallwildlife.org.uk ) has guided rock-pooling at Portwrinkle (August 5 and 14, 1pm-3pm), Penzance (August 12, 10.30am-12.30pm), Newquay (August 16, 2pm-4pm) and Marazion (September 2, 2pm-4pm).

T is for TREASURE HUNT Opened in May, Bewilderwood (01603 783900, www.bewilderwood.co.uk ; under5s free, over5s £10) is a 50-acre slice of Broadland swamp and forest near Wroxham, Norfolk, so enchantingly weird – think Middle-earth with zip-wire and boat rides – your kids will do well to remember the ice-cream adventure trail hunt (July 21-22, 10am). Dover Castle in Kent (01304 211067, www.english-heritage.org.uk ) has prizes for finding hidden keys on several dates in August (9.30am-6pm; ages 5-15, £4.90, adults £9.80).

U is for UNICYCLE With two days (August 11-12) of circus-skills workshops for all standards, plus a circus show in the Hawth Theatre at 7.30pm on the Saturday night, Crawley Circus Festival (01293 553636, www.circuswurx.co.uk ) in West Sussex has tickets covering both days’ workshops and shows (under6s free, ages 6-12, £12, adults £16). Housed in a converted power plant in London’s East End, the Circus Space (020 7613 4141, www.thecircusspace.co.uk ) has half-day (£49; July 21 and August 11) and full-day (£95; August 18) circus-skills introduction days (ages 14+; under16s must be accompanied), learning trapeze and tumbling, juggling and diabolo, plus tightrope-walking, juggling and stilt-walking.

V is for VIKING Valhalla hits the northeast this summer with Viking raids from 11am on July 21-22 at Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire (01947 603568, www.english-heritage.org.uk; ages 5-15, £3, adults £5) and on July 21-September 2 at Jorvik Viking Centre in York (10am-5pm daily; 01904 543402, www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk; ages 6-15, £5.50, adults £7.95), which also has a new exhibit helping kids trace any possible Viking lineage. Strangest Viking raid this summer, though, belongs to Dublin, where Viking Splash Tours (01 707 6000, www.vikingsplash.ie ) has amphibious tours of Dublin in a second world war “Duck”, led by a guide in full Viking garb, splashing down at journey’s end into the Grand Canal Docklands (under13s £6.75, adults £13.50).

W is for WEATHER DISASTERS You don’t need to live in Hull to know the weather omens aren’t great – you need a rainy-day banker. The Natural History Museum in London (10am-5.50pm daily; 020 7942 5000, www.nhm.ac.uk; free) has an Ice Station Antarctica exhibition (under18s £4.50, adults £7), where “ice cadets” test life at –10C, ride snowmobile simulators, smell penguin puke, and chill out. Speaking of which, Xscape (www.xscape.co.uk ) has indoor snow slopes (skiing from £13 per hour, tobogganing from £8 per half-hour) at its centres in Milton Keynes and Leeds, with Glasgow’s 660ft-long monster the largest indoor snow slope in the country.

X is for X FACTOR With more than 600 dance and drama workshops across the country, Stagecoach Theatre Arts (01932 254333, www.stagecoach.co.uk) is the éminence grise of teenage dreams, staging five-day workshops (ages 4-16 from £120) throughout the holidays, culminating in a make-or-break performance for friends and family. Get really serious and PGL (0870 050 7507, www.pgl.co.uk ) has residential holidays (ages 7-16) at Boreatton Park, Shropshire, and Marchants Hill, Surrey, writing and producing your own film script or music CD (both from £475) or choreographing your own dance routine (from £465). Prices include seven nights’ full-board.

Y is for YACHT Forget the ferry ’cross the Mersey, Liverpool’s kids can sail across it in a dinghy this summer, with lessons from Merseysport (0151 708 9322, www.merseysport.org.uk ) at Mariner’s Wharf, Queens Dock. You need to take out annual membership first (under16s £17.50), but that gives you a free lesson worth £6 per child, and access to the club’s windsurfers and canoes; further lessons £6 each. In Devon, try ICC (01548 531176, www.icc-salcombe.co.uk ), who launch their dinghies from the Egremont – once a Mersey ferry, now their floating base in the Salcombe estuary. Two-day courses cost from £135. See www.rya.org.uk for more local sail schools.

Z is for ZIP WIRE The UK’s longest zip wire opened near Aberfoyle, Stirling, this summer, with a 1,400ft-long journey right across the Little Fawn Waterfall in Queen Elizabeth Forest Park. Part of a three-hour, high-ropes assault course of rope bridges, Tarzan swings and the like, Scotland’s newest adrenaline buzz is the latest in the Go Ape empire (0870 444 5562, www.goape.co.uk ), with similar courses spread across England (ages 10-17, £20, adults £25).

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