A Few of My Favorite Things ….. For a ROAD TRIP!!!!

When my husband told me he wanted us to drive to North Carolina (a 14 hour drive) I frantically scanned his face for any possible clue he was attempting a joke. HE WAS SERIOUS. He wanted to get into our SUV with our 5 year old son and 3 year old daughter and drive for 14 hours?! After my initial reaction of shear panic subsided, I began my ‘glass half-full’ super-mom approach. Oh, AND I had a week to round up my supplies! This momma put it in high gear and started gleaning as much as I could from Pinterest, mom blogs and Google searches. I put together a helpful guide of what I found most useful and age appropriate for a 3 and 5 year old.  If you have a Dollar Tree store near you, you’re golden! I had one large bag of activities for the kids and one large bag for my necessities. For me, organization is a must- so I’ll add some of my tips on that too.

1. Building with Felt. I bought felt sheets from Jo-ann Fabric and Crafts Store in bright colors blue, green, red, yellow and orange and then 1 sheet of very stiff black felt. The stiff felt is used as a ‘felt board’ and the other colors I cut into various shapes: squares, rectangles and triangles all of different sizes. The kids did some 2-D building with the felt pieces to make patterns and pictures. All of this was done on their laps with the aid of cookie sheets I bought at the Dollar Tree. These were so handy for so many projects! This kept them busy for about 30 minutes.
2. EZ PAINT. I found these fantastic paints at my local JBF Sale. These paints don’t spill or drip, they are non-toxic and they are totally odorless. My kids LOVED these. I just used some magnetic clips to clip their little card stock paper pictures to paint (they come with the EZ Paint) to their cookie sheet so they could paint on their laps. This kept both of them busy for at least 45 min – 1 hour. But I would do this activity as the last one before a planned stop because younger children that enjoy painting their fingers will need to wash their hands when finished. Otherwise, baby wipes clean up just as well. Also, When you’ve painted all the little cards that come with it, unruled little index cards work great and you can get a big pack from Dollar Tree.
3. Paper Towel Roll Puzzle. This one surprised me a little. I saw it on another blog and planned it as one of the activities but had no idea how much my son would enjoy it. I took a paper towel roll and wrote the alphabet on it in random places A-Z. Then I took those circle stickers you can buy at any office supply store or Target/Walmart and wrote A-Z on them (in order). He had to find the letter on the roll and place the corresponding letter on top. The stickers wouldn’t stick very well, so my son used a glue stick. When he was done he was rewarded with a fruit roll-up. This is a treat he doesn’t often get so he was happy. This took my 5 year old about 30-45 minutes to complete. My 3 year old was not interested.
4. Fill the Gumball Machine. This one was easy. I found this picture of a gumball machine in black and white. I printed each child a few and took my 1″ circle paper punch and made a bag full of bright colored construction paper gumballs. Then each child filled their gumball machine by gluing whatever color/pattern of paper gumballs into their machines they wanted. They used their cookie sheet work surface AGAIN. Never got so much out of $1 investments … This took them about 30 minutes to complete.
5. Design a Crown. I bought foam crowns from Dollar Tree and foam letter and other decorative foam stickers and let them decorate their own crowns until their royal little hearts were content. They loved finding all the letters to spell their names. Again, this activity was done on their laps with their cookie sheets. Because of the cookie sheet having that lip, the little foam shapes wouldn’t slide off their laps onto the floor. You would be amazed at what you can find at Dollar Tree. I got several ideas just looking around at different things imagining what I could have the kids do with them. Their crowns took about 30 minutes to complete.
6. Black Paper & Colored Chalk. This one also surprised me, but I decided to throw it in my little bag of tricks just in case I could sell it. Both kids liked it. It was simple- draw on black paper with colored chalk and make “night time” pictures. It didn’t keep them busy forever, but 20 minutes is 20 minutes. Plus, who doesn’t already have black paper and chalk?
7. Travel BINGO. I gleaned the net for some pictures of things I thought would be easy for us to spot from the various highways we’d be traveling. I then organized them 4 different ways on 4 BINGO cards. I had them printed at Office Depot in color. I bought these magnets from Office Depot while I was there. They were circles that had a paper backing that peeled and exposed a sticky surface. So I took my 1″ circle paper punch and punched out different colored card stock and made BINGO markers. The magnetic markers stuck perfectly to the BINGO sheet on their cookie sheets. The links to those PDF BINGO sheets are below. This would keep them busy and looking out the windows for 45 min – 1 hour. I even enjoyed playing it with them.
TravelBingo1 TravelBingo2 TravelBingo3 TravelBingo4
8. Puzzles. Dollar Tree sells a variety of puzzles and my children like the 24-piece variety. These puzzles fit nicely on their cookie sheets and I made sure all the puzzles they got on the trip were new to them. The key to keeping them entertained is keeping all the activities a surprise! I made sure to pick up 2-3 different puzzles for each child.
9. Foam Crafts. Dollar Tree had these great little foam crafts in a bag. One was building 3 butterflies and another was building 3 Dinosaurs. They had several to choose from. If you can’t find these at Dollar Tree, try Oriental Trading Company. My son had an easier time at 5 years old. My 3 year old required a lot more assistance. Don’t forget to pack extra glue sticks.
10. Sticker Scenes. These I got from Oriental Trading Company. My children LOVE these. They are simply paper scenes that the kids place themed stickers on to finish the scene. They have every kind of theme you can imagine. My children love the beach, picnic, wild west and outer space themes. They cost about $5.25 per dozen. This easily amuses them for an hour or more.

Now, for my bag of tricks I made sure to have:

• Snacks (lots of them and some special things they don’t often get- road trips are special circumstances)
• Wet Ones Wipes
• Baby Wipes- even if you don’t have babies, these wipes clean almost anything!
• Roll of Paper Towels
• Magnetic Clips for their activities to secure to their cookie sheets
• Chlorox Wipes for wiping picnic areas in rest stops
• Ziplock bags of various sizes
• Empty Grocery Bags for easy gathering and disposing of car trash
• Bowls for their snacks (disposable are most convenient or you can just use the Ziplock bags)
• First Aid Bag with ointment, band-aids, insect sting relief, nail clippers, tweezers and nail file.
• Small bills of Cash and Quarters for vending machines along the way.
• My family has a National Parks Passport, so I always keep that in my bag in case we stop at a National Park along the way.

Even though it was a lot of work planning, packing and orchestrating our trip, I had so much fun doing it. The kids LOVED their activities and they can’t wait for the next one. The 14 hour drive was scary at first, but when I gave my kids snacks, activities and my attention- they were happy, little travelers and our trip was smooth sailing. Hope you have as much success on your next trip.