We travel a lot over the summer with our 3 kids- and almost always by car.
Today I’m sharing what I pack in each of their car bags in order to keep them entertained and happy on a long road trip. 🙂
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Road trip activities for our toddler
My son, Andrew, is 2 years old. Here’s an example of some of the things I packed for him to do on one of our latest road trips:
Toy computer: This toy has lots of different buttons to push, has a little screen that shows letters, numbers, shapes, etc. and doesn’t take up too much space.
A pouch of small plastic animals to play with
A few matchbox cars
A pouch with a few Little People toys: Andrew loves his Little People sets. He plays with them, talks to them, makes them talk to each other, etc.
A meReader with books: If you haven’t heard of meReaders before, it’s a set of books with an electronic “reader.” Each time you turn a page, you can push a different button and it will read that page out loud to you.
A few Magna-Tiles: Andrew loves Magna-Tiles, so I included a few in his backpack- enough to build a house for one of his Little People. 😉
A Colorblast! book and marker: These books are great. You only need one marker, and it makes all the different colors in this little book.
Road trip activities for our preschooler
My daughter, Kate, is 5 years old. Here’s what I packed in her bag:
Summer Brain Quest workbook: We tried out these workbooks for the first time this summer, and they are great. There’s a map at the end, and each time you do a page, you get to put a sticker on your map. There are also outdoor activity suggestions and a suggested summer reading list.
2 Wonderbooks: Wonderbooks are books that read aloud to you as you follow along. Kate is old enough now to follow along with chapter books, which entertains her for a long time. We find these at our library.
A coloring poster with markers from the dollar store
An imagine-ink coloring pad: This is the same concept as the book we gave our toddler, but this one includes more than just coloring- it also has some games and activities in it.
A book on CD from the library: Our library has tons of books on CD. Kate checked out 2 new ones before this trip.
CD player and headphones: Our kids each have their own portable CD player and headphones so that they can listen to music or books on CD in the car without driving each other crazy.
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Summer Brain Quest: Between Grades Pre-K… |
$5.62 |
Buy on Amazon |
|
HOTT C204 Basic Portable CD Player with… | $36.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Road trip activities for elementary age
My oldest daughter, Emma, is 7. Her attention span is a little longer, and she can be occupied for longer periods of time by a good chapter book, so that’s mostly what we included in her bag:
Workbook and pens/markers: This is from the same series as my preschooler’s workbook. They are so good!
Chapter books: We picked two brand new books from the library just to read on this trip, and hid them from her until it was time to leave!
Audiobooks: We got 2 new books on CD from the library.
CD player and headphones: So that she can listen to her own music and books on CD.
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Summer Brain Quest: Between Grades 1 & 2 | $5.23 | Buy on Amazon |
|
|
HOTT C204 Basic Portable CD Player with… | $36.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Other things we do on road trips
Here are some of our other favorite things to do on road trips:
Snacks: Snacks can be a great activity in the car, especially if you take the time to pack something special that the kids don’t usually get to eat, or if you stop for something special. (One of our favorites is stopping mid-morning for toasted bagels at Sheetz. Yum!)
Naps: We love to plan car trips around our toddler’s nap schedule. We’ll make sure that we’ve eaten and everyone has gone to the bathroom (and the adults have plenty of coffee) so that we can keep driving for as long as possible once he’s fallen asleep.
Listening to music and podcasts: We like to listen to music as a family. Sometimes we let the kids make song requests, and sometimes we listen to the radio or the soundtracks from our favorite movies.
We also like to listen to podcasts or audio adventures together. My preschooler loves this podcast, and my oldest daughter loves these Christian audio adventures.
Wonderbooks: In addition to the chapter Wonderbooks in the pictures above, you can also get tons of picture books that are Wonderbooks.
I usually check out a few to hold on to until someone gets really crabby, and then I pass them out. They have headphone jacks, so everyone can listen to their own story at once.
Some of our other favorite road trip activities for kids:
What are your favorite road trip activities? Let me know in the comments!
Happy travels,
-Laura
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