HINTS FOR EASIER TRAVELING-- PART 2: ENTERTAINMENT!
Living in MT has helped our kids immensely when it comes to getting use to being in the car a lot. We travel 1 hour to church every Sunday and 45+ minutes to Billings two other times during the week for Joel's speech. I don't pack toys, books or anything along for them. If they choose to grab something on the way out the door, fine, but I just can't think about it for 3 kids as frequently as we go. It has taught them to enjoy their surroundings a bit more -- looking for cows, horses and hawks are always a favorite! When all else fails, they pick on each other, and drive mom crazy! :)
A 23 hour trip, however, is much different. There is plenty of time to enjoy surroundings and still be bored stiff. My kids love creative play. If you give them a few horses or animals of any sort, they can go crazy for an hour making them talk about anything. Here are some other thoughts of what I plan to bring...
* tub of horses/animals
* handful of matchbox cars
* drawing paper, stuff to write with
* books (hopefully I'll get to the library before we go for some new ones!)
* Leapsters (which is a treat b/c I never have the batteries charged up for them)
* magna doodle (I think ours is broke, though...)
* DVD player...yup, we give in to this one on these long trips. It only gets put in the car once a year when we travel to MI, but it works oh-so-well for that peace & quiet you just need once in a while when you're all crammed into a tiny place for such a long period of time! (Do I sound like I'm making excuses?????) :)
I'd love to hear any other suggestions you may have for entertaining children in the car. Do you know of any of those artsy things that would work? Keep in mind, I have very little time before we leave and don't want to go out and spend a fortune on new gadgets. I also like to keep things organized and un-messy (no cutting or pasting projects). The car has no problem becoming a pig-pen on it's own!
7 comments:
can you get audio books from your library?
as a kid, i remember playing travel bingo on long car trips. google "travel bingo" and it looks like there are lots of different links to bingo cards all ready to print out and use!
Thanks for the ideas! I'll check with our library about the audio books...they probably have them.
I just thought of some other ideas that I might run to the dollar store to look for. I thought I'd post them here in case anyone else can benefit from the idea.
* new coloring books
* word searches
* color by number
etc.
Myah is really into these things, and if I can find them on Joel's level, he enjoys playing similar games on some computer software we have.
Terri, Josh is really into Color Wonder right now. They are about $6.99-7.99 here, but keep him busy for a long time. They also have those in finger paints that would probably work for Kiana. They are so nice because they are compact and do not create a mess!
Thanks foe the travel ideas...I love having organized friends! Four kids ages 5 and under for 15+ hours...we need to prepare too!
Jelly roll pans make great food/craft trays and are magnetic! And they store neatly under the carseat with coloring books and reading books.
We put a basket in the middle of the back seat. This helps short arms to reach toys and gives them a place to toss everything when it's time to get out and stretch.
Print out maps of the US and everytime you enter a new state, let them color it in or put a sticker on it. Offer a treat or snack related to the state (ex, Wisconsin=cheese)
Hang a tote bag off the seat infront of the kids so they can easily access books, etc.
I will be putting old towels down over the van seats and the kids' carseats. Easy to quick shake out crumbs and bits. And after having one kid vomit in the car while driving, I don't want to have to clean up that kind of mess in a gas station restroom again! Take the towel out and toss it! I also have a semi-potty trained kid...'nuf said.
Great ideas!! We have scholastic books on tape and also bible stories on CD. I would let the kids use our old walkman's to listen to their stories so we could really have peace and quiet.
We've used the magnadoodles, car bingo, coloring, reading... It's also nice to have a prepared list of conversation starters or even songs that everyone knows. I took one read aloud book and would occationally read a chapter and then we would discuss what we read.
Savannah is my only child that gets severely car sick if she reads or colors. Ginger helps settle the tummy and Trader Joe's has candies called Ginger Chews that help her with nausea. I don't like using dramamine or other drugs. The last trip she took, she didn't throw up one time with the Ginger Chews.
Great idea with the jelly roll pan. You could even get the magnetic letters and numbers and practice spelling. We used small storage containers to keep everything from getting scattered.
Thanks for all the great ideas everyone! Thanks to all of you, I have some new things I plan to use on the trip. Any prayers you are willing to give for safety and sanity will be much appreciated! Thanks!
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