Long road trips with children can spark fear in even the bravest of parents, so I am always thinking about different ways to keep car time fun. Here a few ideas that our family has used to help make travelling with kids easier for everyone.
#1 MAP IT! This idea springs from something my sister and I did on that 10 day road trip last fall. We were armed with an atlas and several colored highlighters (because, I always travel with . We decided that who ever was a passenger in the car was responsible for highlighting our route as we drove. It was long trip, and we were using the GPS, so this was just something to do to pass the time. I also took random photos of the map as we highlighted it. Again, 10 days in the car.
As I was looking through the photos it hit me that it would be a great way for the older kids to track our road trip progress. As a bonus they would be actively learning about maps. Who knows, it might even reduce the frequency of that dreaded "are we there yet?" question.
If you don't have an atlas or map you could always print one from map quest or Google.
#1 MAP IT! This idea springs from something my sister and I did on that 10 day road trip last fall. We were armed with an atlas and several colored highlighters (because, I always travel with . We decided that who ever was a passenger in the car was responsible for highlighting our route as we drove. It was long trip, and we were using the GPS, so this was just something to do to pass the time. I also took random photos of the map as we highlighted it. Again, 10 days in the car.
As I was looking through the photos it hit me that it would be a great way for the older kids to track our road trip progress. As a bonus they would be actively learning about maps. Who knows, it might even reduce the frequency of that dreaded "are we there yet?" question.
If you don't have an atlas or map you could always print one from map quest or Google.
#2 Travel Treats! This was what I came up with for our last big road trip. It was 21 hours round trip and this was a bit hit with the kids. I made a travel treat kit for each hour of the trip and then doled out the goods at the end of each hour. I wrapped each kit in coloured tissue paper and used a marker to put the child's name and number each kit in the order it would be given out. Each kit had a trinket, book, or small toy and a non melting candy or snack with a drink. This helped to cut down on convenience store stops as well. I told the kids that the drinks, candy, and snacks were all they got for the trip so they could eat them when they got them or save them for later. Here is an an example of some of our travel treat contents:
#1 Small tootsie roll sucker, a book of mazes ($1 at target) and a small gel pen
#2 Fruity Pebbles cereal bar, capri sun, & small puzzle in a tin ($1 at Dollar Store)
#3 Fruit Snacks, Legos, and a small bottled water
#4 Snack Size M & M's, homemade magntic paper dolls ( paper lego mini figs for the boys)
#5 Lunchable with drink and mini journal with pen.
#1 Small tootsie roll sucker, a book of mazes ($1 at target) and a small gel pen
#2 Fruity Pebbles cereal bar, capri sun, & small puzzle in a tin ($1 at Dollar Store)
#3 Fruit Snacks, Legos, and a small bottled water
#4 Snack Size M & M's, homemade magntic paper dolls ( paper lego mini figs for the boys)
#5 Lunchable with drink and mini journal with pen.
#3 TRAVEL TIME BINDER I loved the idea of putting together road trip busy book for each child. I used 3 ring binders, plastic page protectors, and three ring binder pouches. I printed colouring sheets, puzzles, and road trip games on my printer. There are so many great blogs and websites featuring great free travel printable like road trip bingo. Just do a Google search and you will find more than you need. My kids really enjoyed theirs and it is re usable for upcoming trips. If you place the printable and colouring sheets inside the page protectors the kids can colour or draw on the plastic with a dry erase marker or dry erase crayons (love those!).
The photo's below are a few shot of the inside of our travel binders.
The photo's below are a few shot of the inside of our travel binders.