Friday Home Fun, Travel Activities

Our previous post was all about “Traveling with the Small Child”.  Below are a few activities you and your children can make in advance to keep them occupied during the travel time!  I also found this great forum from Children’s Hospital that had some great tips on how to keep toddlers occupied during a long trip! Check out their article “Traveling with Toddlers and Toddler Meltdowns”. 

Primrose parents, don’t forget to check out more weekend home fun ideas on our Primrose Parent’s Place! Primrose Thornton website, Primrose Stapleton website, PrimroseReunion website.

Snack Mix Necklace

Make road trip snacks fun with this snack mix necklace. Have your child pick out their favorite snacks that can be strung onto a piece of twine.  Use this as a perfect opportunity to practicing patterns and counting while you create your fun snack mix necklaces! 

Need:

Twine

String-able Snacks (pretzels, Frootloops, Cherios, life savers, cookies (with holes)

Yarn darners

Hanging Route Guide

Keep kids focused on the route instead of the destination. If you are driving in a car, hang a piece of string on the ceiling from one end of the car to the other. Add paper circles with names of cities, towns and monuments you will be passing by. As you drive past them, take them off of the string. This is a great visual for children to see how close you are to the destination, but also gets them excited about upcoming locations and stops. Have your children help you create this fun activity by looking on the map to find some great points of interest!

Need:

String

Paper

Hole punch

map

Magnetic Boards

 Do your kids like magnets? Create this fun magnet board to keep them occupied during a long road trip. This also is a helpful tool if your child likes to play with small toys that are easily dropped in the car. Affix a magnet to the bottom of the toy to keep them from falling to the floor.

Need:

Cookie Sheet

Magnetic letters

Other fun magnets

Small toys

Glue dots

Magnet strip

Travel Bingo

Create a fun travel game that will keep the kids occupied the entire trip! Have children look through magazines (or search online for photos) and cut out small pictures of things you might see while you travel. Glue them  onto the bingo boards in different patterns.  Children can mark off pictures when they see them along the way. First one to make a bingo wins!

Need:

Bingo cards (old or homemade)

Pictures of travel items

Glue or sticky dots

Paint dobber, crayons, etc.

I Spy Games

Make lists of different categories of things you might see on your trip. For example, a list of animals, a list of car colors, state license plates, road signs, etc.  Have your children mark them off as you travel to and from your destination and take a look at them when you return to remember all they saw along the way.

Need:

Pen and Paper

Vacation Scavenger Hunt!

This will keep your child occupied not only while you travel, but also on your vacation as well. Give your child an old camera to take pictures of items on a scavenger hunt list as well as some of their favorite things along the way. They will love looking at their pictures over and over on the way home and remembering all of the fun they had on their vacation.

Need:

Scavenger hunt list

Old digital Camera

We all know that with young children these activities can last hours or only minutes, so we need to have lots of ideas in our “tool box”.  Here are some other quick thinking activities to keep in your “tool box” of ideas full if you need an activity change!

Foil Art: Pack some foil and have children use it to create some fun foil jewelry or foil animals! Just like playdough fun, but without the mess!

Drawing Game- Pass around a piece of paper to have each person add to the picture. Have your child color the picture when you are done. For the older child, they can also write a story that goes with the picture.

Car Race Track: draw a road on a piece of paper for your toddler to drive a toy car around.

Sing Along Time: Don’t forget your stash of kids CD’s for sing along time or your list of nursery rhymes and songs to sing.

Sticker Scenes: When children become bored witch crayons and markers, give them books of stickers to stick to paper to create pictures scenes instead.

Lacing Fun: Create a quick lacing activity for children by simply unlacing their shoe and having them lace it back up. You can also create a pattern or picture on a piece of paper by poking holes through a piece of paper with a pen and having children lace the holes with their shoe laces.  Create hours of fun by making lacing boards from cardboard in advance.

Comment on this post to share your fun travel activities!

See you back next week for a post on Holiday Customs and Traditions! We can’t wait to hear about how your family celebrates the holiday!