Car Travel Activities

We took a road trip a couple years ago. In preparation I found a great website: http://www.momsminivan.com/index.html
It has fabulous ideas! I hope you find something useful.

One thing I remember my mother doing when we were kids and made that drive at least once a year, was to take a piece of chalk and divide the front tire into sections with numbers or names in each section/ Then each time the car stopped (for gas or potty break, etc) the number or name told us what we would do on the next leg of the trip. For example, if my name (or initials) were on the top, I would get to choose the music we listened to or the snacks we ate, or make whatever choice there was to make (we didn't have DVD's, but that could be a choice, too). Or, if you put numbers then the numbers could represent the choices, ie. 1- movie, 2- CD's, 3- play a family game. Or each number could represent a different treat. Maybe the kids could earn extra money to spend at Disneyland by getting along well or being in charge of something specific in the car. One could hand out drinks, one could be in charge of the dvd's, etc. Ok, so I just looked at the ages of your kids, maybe they aren't old enough for all that, but you get the idea.
Books on CD are a great way to pass time, too.
Another idea...my parents used to leave at bedtime and we would pretty much sleep the whole way. The trip always seemed short that way. We would go to sleep and when we woke up we were there!
Have agreat trip!

14 moms found this helpful

S.- These games may be too grown up for your kids, but my kids enjoy them. Take along a blank map of the U.S. and every time you see a licence plate let the kids color in the state on the map.This will teach them the placement of the states. As your kids get older they can do it more on their own. You'll be surprized at how uch they enjoy this. My kids also like to play the ABC game.Look for letters in order on billboards. See how long it takes you to finish. You can teach them new songs or do fingerplays. Have your 6 year old help you with the others or he/she may get bored. You can also have the kids count all the trucks, white cars,red cars...in a certain amount of time. Have your kds make alist or let you what they like to do. Don't forget to let them get out and run at rest stops. Most of all have fun. P.

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My husbaned and I recently took a road trip from Utah to Kentucky (24 hours in the car) with our 5 year old daughter and almost 3 year old son. We had the DVD player and got a lot of use out of that and I gave them each their own bag of activities that they were in charge of, but the thing that worked the best was bribery. I bought "prizes" for them and they knew what they were so they knew what they were working toward. If they were good for the allotted amount of time, they earned their prize. For example, when we got to the hotel at the end of one day in the car, my son earned a new Cars pillowcase that he got to sleep on that night. They loved it and it worked really well. Good Luck!

7 moms found this helpful

We have made this trip a couple of times, so we really utilize our car activities. If you can get aquadoodles, those are fun. They have the mats and the water pens and make it so easy to let them doodle without loosing crayons and such. My daughter also loves the magnetic letters and you can put them on a small cookie sheet to play with on their lap. Also there are magnetic activity sets that are easy to bring along. Have fun!

7 moms found this helpful

Prepare for them getting car sick, you never know when that'll happen. Radio Disney is great, my 6 year old is obsessed with that station. Play games like who can count more yellow cars or something. Travel games are fun, finding signs, you could probably download a bingo sheet somewhere of things you might find on the road. Google for more ideas. Good luck and have a great time at Disneyland!

My mom drove 3 of us cross country ages 3-7-9 from Cali to rhode island. It was crazy, but it worked.

6 moms found this helpful

I love to scrapbook and recently put a kit together for my neice who was just diagnosed with cancer. It's not an intense kit - she's only 10 - but it has lined pages for her to write notes, thoughts, feelings and experiences as well as stickers and "ribbon tape" and other embellishments and glitter pens for her to write with. This would not go over real well with my 5 year old son, but your girls might like something like that. Bring some pictures for each of them to use and they can work on their own scrapbook while your driving - they may also put together pages for the pictures you take while you're on your trip so they're ready to put their vacation books together when you get home.

My sister put some plastic canvas projects for our niece in her "travel bag" and maybe your girls would like that. Or they have those crochet rings at the craft stores that they could make hats or something.

I've also seen some travel games that are magnetic they could play together or card games. I hope some of this may help. Have a wonderful trip!

5 moms found this helpful

My girls are too young for this but was reading through them. You got some great ideas!! Another idea I had with the map is to have a copy of one for the 6 year old and maybe 3 and each time they are "are we there yet?" you can show them on the map and have them mark it. You can show the beginning and end of the trip and follow the map! You could do that in conjunction with coloring the whole state as you pass through it. How fun!! Have a great trip!

4 moms found this helpful

Well you posted in April that trip was in May and it's already June, so I guess no more suggestions for you! LOL :) But, for all of the other parents planning road trips, I do have one suggestion: Give each kid an allotment of money - a roll of quarters works pretty good. If the child misbehaves, he has to give you a quarter. Whatever is left when you get there, is his to spend as he please - in the arcade, shopping, ice cream, whatever! Depending upon the age of the child and the length of the trip, you can adjust the monetary value. Maybe dollars are in order, or maybe dimes will work. or maybe you use marbles or plastic chips that can be exchanged for a predetermined amount of money or other reward like staying up a little later each night. We even went so far as to have them give each other the money if they were not being nice to each other! That was always pretty funny! LOL ;)

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You can get portable game players. Also old standbys like I Spy, 20 questions, etc. are always good. Have some snacks at hand and make frequent stops to let them get out the wiggles. At that age they also might like to play dolls or such. Polly Pockets are small and very transportable. Make them an in the car only toy to make it special.

3 moms found this helpful

We like to play I spy in while driving in the car. We also play this game where I say something like "First one to see a garbage can wins". That game lasts a long time. Good luck. Make sure you stop often so they can stretch their feet.

3 moms found this helpful

We gave our oldest girl bananas and baby food that she could feed her baby sister along the way. She also had a basket of grapes and crackers that she could eat/give to her brother. Aside from the baby, my kids LOVED playing various Alphabet games - where you have to go in alphabetical order and follow the category: girl names/things you see/etc. I think one of my kids wasn't quite old enough to play, but liked listening....and sometimes "took turns". We sang their favorite songs, too.

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I don't know how possible this is for you, but anytime we make a long trip, we drive at night, that way the kids sleep for most of it. My oldest son gets car sick really easy and this helps to eliminate that.
We are also driving to Disneyland, next week actually, and I am more concerned about the drive home as that will be during the day. If you hear of any good ideas, please let me know.

2 moms found this helpful

Go to the library and check out some books on tape/dvd. Totally free!! If you put some time into it, you can find ones that you and hubby will (sort of) enjoy as well as the kidlets. For example, we got a kick out of the Junie B's (perfect for your children at their age now), now we've progressed to Indian in the Cupboard and books like that.

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So how was your drive to disneyland

HI S.,

Could you please tell me what sites you use for coloring pgs.? I have seen some pretty good ones and I know there are many more.

Thank you for your reply :) K.