We are gearing up (or some of us have already started) the longest school holiday break of the year.

Depending on your state, territory, and if you're public or private, it can range from five to nine weeks (yikes!). Most grown-ups who work have four weeks of annual leave a year. And across the entire school calendar, there are between 12 and 14 weeks of school holidays a year. Can we circle back to the maths of parents getting four weeks of annual leave? Because the maths isn't mathing.

Watch: What type of school parent are you? Post continues after video.

School holiday care - how do we do it?

There are holiday programs, vacation care and dance and sports camps programs, but these are expensive. Sports camps typically are around $100 a day. While with excursions, the school vacation care programs can cost upward of $50 a day.

Also, if your school is like mine, they have a shutdown period during this long summer break. A 30-day shutdown period.

My school's vacation care re-opens on January 20. So what do we do if we work full-time, have no family support and have endless days to fill and occupy their time?

Affordable childcare solutions.

My hot tip: you make a roster with your friends.

My kids are nine and 12, so admittedly, this is much easier now. They would happily rot on an iPad for days at a time. But I don't want that to be my parenting legacy.

My girlfriends and I have created a rotating roster of days we either take leave or work from home and can be a 'base camp' for a bunch of them. Everyone brings their own snacks and money for lunch.

And we send them out to the park, basketball courts, up the street to get lunch, screen movies for the middle of the day. Yes, there will be more dishes (but then there's always paper cups and plates).

The more kids there are, they entertain each other and the older ones look after the younger ones. Another tactic I used when my kids were younger were using friends' older kids as teen babysitters.

My friends and I would pay two young teenagers to be in charge for the day. They would take them to the park, and manage the endless snack requests. When you are paying people $15 an hour and dividing it amongst a few families, it's a really cost-effective childcare solution.

Plus, it's a great whack of bubble tea and MECCA spending money for them. The kids love it because they are hanging with 'cool' older kids and your younger kids have supervision.

How do other people get through the school holidays?

I wanted to find out how other parents handle the world's longest school holidays, so I turned to the Mamamia community for their survival advice:

"I buy leave (my employer offers this) which gives me an extra couple of weeks. I also deliberately sought out an industry that closed down over Christmas. My husband and I share the rest of the load. We avoided vacation care wherever we could. Our kids needed the break and honestly so did we." - Bec.

"We do holiday camps — where they go and stay overnight for five days. It works out cheaper as you're not having to drop off, pick up, or feed them. Much better for working parents and my son loves it! He's made friends outside school, is not on his device for five days and gets to do outdoor adventure activities — it's a win win." - Natarscha.

"I can work from home for some of it and so can my husband, then we will also lean on grandparents and friend play dates" - Deanne.

"I will break up the day by taking them to a trampoline bouncing centre or the park and take my laptop and work while they burn energy" - Emma.

"We're alternating parents taking leave, buddying up with friends to look after each other's kids, and trying to do longer activities like bushwalking and bike rides that take a whole day (not just an hour or two)" - Breanna.

"We have VacSwim at the beach for two weeks in January, and I've enrolled my older kids into a programme. We do loads, but it's also about loading the mornings. I do energy-burning things in the mornings with the kids, come home and chill and then maybe go to the park in the afternoon" - Brodie.

"My husband works a four-day on/four day off rotating roster. On days he works, he works 2pm-11pm. I work 9am-2pm. So he sometimes just starts a little later and waits for me to finish work and take over." - Carmen.

"My son does Scouts during school term, and during the break we take advantage of activity days our group plans. So far, we have two bushwalks planned, as well as a day at the bike track. Importantly, we are sharing supervision across the various Scout Leaders and parents — it takes a village! I'll be going with a few kids on a bushwalk day, and then another leader is supervising the pump track day (when I'll be at work). Having shared interests really helps to find something fun and cheap!" - Bree.

"Curl up in a ball and rock back and forth. I'm three weeks in for one kid and one day in for the other." - Shelley.

So our thoughts and prayers are with you all at this time. You are not alone but when we come together and join forces. Everything is a little easier.

How do you manage the long school holidays? Share in the comments below.

Feature Image: Supplied.