# Need ideas...



## KyMama (Jun 15, 2011)

We are going on vacation later this month and I need ideas for things to keep my soon-to-be 5 yr old busy on the 6+ hour drive. I have found a few ideas that I will link to at the bottom of this post, but wanted to know what y'all do to keep the little ones busy. I'm posting it here because I would prefer to make a few things and save our money for St. Louis. 

Here are the few things I am thinking of making. First is the car caddy to go with these car mats. I will probably make the car caddy with pockets on both sizes instead of the road. This way he can take plenty of cars and we can keep track of how many he has. I know he won't be able to play with all the mats in the truck, but it will give him something to play with when we are in the hotel.

Maybe a few of these marble mazes. He will have crayons and paper and/or coloring books too. I have to figure out something to contain those too. 

So I figure I have the first 30 minutes of the drive covered.


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

My DS always loved puppets, so we always had puppets in the car. Also crayons and paper are an old stand by.


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## mustangsally17 (Nov 3, 2007)

Also, you can go on-line and find many sites with activities to print off for kids. Crayola has one. Just an idea, I always kept these treats a surprise, pulling something out of my bag as needed. Have fun on your trip.


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## mustangsally17 (Nov 3, 2007)

http://tipnut.com/sitesearch/?cx=00...1&ie=UTF-8&q=crafts+for+kids&sa=Search+Tipnut


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## Tinker (Apr 5, 2004)

How about some kind of Bingo game? Set up a grid in Excel, then stick in a bunch of clip art, or even stickers. He can watch for the items and mark them off as he sees them. You could do 6 or 8 different cards, maybe 1 for while you were going through a big city (hospital, McDonald's arches, overpass, car dealer, etc) and another for rural areas, with farm animals, ponds, hay bales, tractors, etc.


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## [email protected] (Feb 24, 2005)

Pipe cleaners. They can keep a kid busy for hours. 

There is also a product called Wixi sticks. I'm not sure of the spelling. It's string coated in colored wax. They make play sets with things to do and ideas. The down side of those and crayons is the possiblity of melting if left in a hot car. 

Books and books with a cd are good. We used to keep our youngest happy with kid music cd's and a set of head phones so that the rest of us wouldn't go insane listening to it. We used the big over the ear headphones and kept the volume low to not hurt her young ears.

We routinly took trips that were around 20 hours each way, our kids did fine. We stopped at rest areas and threw a nerf football and let the kids run around.


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## goodhors (Sep 6, 2011)

If the reading skills are able, map reading and finding the route you travel can be fun. Learning all the little numbers, exits, miles between towns, turnoffs, reading town names on map, then outside signs, can be quite entertaining with a road map. 

Needing adult participation, stuffed animal stories acted out, can work well. Word books with various kinds of puzzles, dot-to-dot, math, NEW set of colored pencils to use, will work for a while. We also learned various kinds of braiding with craft laces. Knot tying with a book for directions, only needed some short lengths of smooth parachute cord or long shoe laces to practice with. I learned with that one too!! 

Weaving potholders was another big hit on one trip. Loops and loom, crochet hook I had, came out pretty inexpensive. Maybe you could make loops from old sweatshirt sleeves ahead of time if there is no local loop source like a Michaels or Hobby Lobby.

You might check with the local Library, see if they have books on CDs, our son enjoyed those a lot. You could borrow instead of purchase.

Take HEALTHY snacks in a small cooler. Avoid sugar, pop, those kinds of snacks. Sugar makes the kids hyper anyway, so that REALLY can escalate bad behaviour in the car quickly!! Cut veggies in a bag, milk in a box, dried fruit, real fruit, flavored yogurts with a spoon, all make good snacks. Ask what kind of snacks he would like taken?

Enjoy the trip. Do make time for plenty of rest stops, run around time. It is hard sitting in your carseat for very long. Make sure your "other half" KNOWS THIS and is willing to abide by the NEED to stop often. Little kids are not just small adults, can't ride that long comfortably. Some parents just don't understand and it makes for terrible traveling.


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## lambs.are.cute (Aug 15, 2010)

When I was young we would take a 12 hr each way trip to see my grandparents. I remember playing counting all the cars/trucks/semis/etc. My sister, brother and I would each pick a color and a type (ie blue car) and would count as many as we saw for a certian time (suppost to be five minutes but I think that mom timed it longer or shorter as long as we were having fun and paying attention). That would keep good for hours on busy roads. 

We would also draw and color. Each of us kids had a box with a few crayons, a pencil, and colored pencils. We had a folder with coloring pages that we had chosen and blank pages. We would draw what we saw (a car, a mountain, etc). The crayons/etc went right back into the box after use because we knew if we droped it we wouldn't be getting it back anytime soon. 

We always had a selection of music and books on tape/cd from the library for our trip. We had both adult and children's stories. We started out with mom and dad's story and even if we couldn't totally understand it or follow the story we listened while we drew or counted cars. It was just enough distraction with out mom and dad having to listen to annoying music. 

Mom and dad would always start the drive at about 5 am. They would pack our suit cases in the car the night before. They had a small bag with clothes for us kids and our toys were put by our seats. Then they would carefully carry us to the car the next morning along with our pillows and we would sleep at least three hours of the trip. We would stop for breakfast and a chance for us kids to get dressed when we were all awake. This also meant that we were arriving around dinner time so that was one less meal out.


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## NickyBlade (May 27, 2008)

How about putting some of his favorite things in shallow containers (like tupperware or rubbermade). They have the flat bottom to play with things on and the sides to keep parts from going everywhere. My daughter did this with Betty Spaghetti in the car at that age and never lost a single bead. You could put anything inside... legos, action figures, matchbox cars, what ever keeps him entertained the longest at home.


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## Garnet (Sep 19, 2003)

Travel Bingo

Make up bingo "cards" with fabric, felt, denim. Use fabric paint, markers, or fuzed applique for items to be matched as seen along the way. Sew a button in each square. Cut a bunch of felt squares or circles with a slit in the center. When the item (train, barn, rest area, arches, flat bed truck) is spotted, your little one slips a square or circle over the button. Have little prizes to be collected when a row, column, 4 corners, X, etc. is "buttoned up."


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## Garnet (Sep 19, 2003)

Oops. Sorry Tinker. I missed your post.


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## GrannyG (Mar 26, 2005)

I have a bunch of stuff saved on my Pinterest board, want to make something special for the great grands...check it out, you may find something, so many great ideas by talented people ~
Quiet Book Loves


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## KyMama (Jun 15, 2011)

Thanks y'all. We survived getting here. We made it across Indiana before he said he was bored. He had his Leapster Explorer with a new game he got for his birthday so he played it a while. He loved the notebook I put together with a bunch of mazes and connect the dots. It also has color by number and color hidden pictures, but I don't think he got to those. 

We've decided to head south and back across western Kentucky on our way home, but this time he has new toys from our adventures here in St. Louis so I think he will be happy. At least I hope he will be, I am exhausted and we aren't even done yet. Gonna need a vacation from our vacation. LOL


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## meanwhile (Dec 13, 2007)

We used cheap tool belts for the kids' stuff in the car. Just fill it with markers, crayons, etc and hang it over the head rests from the front seats. We also made our own "car table" from cardboard boxes. Just get a box, cut it down to the size you want - make the front side open, that is the side the child will have facing them.....then leave sides and a back on it. We glued smaller boxes to it that held a cup and whatever else they wanted to cram in there. 

We covered the boxes with old wrapping paper so they looked fun. They lasted a long time. Also, we used old brief cases for the boys. They would put paper, color books, markers, tons of crayons, stickers.....books....anything they wanted in the brief case and the rule was that they had to keep all their own stuff picked up all the time. They would put small hot-wheel cars in the case too.

You can find all sorts of coloring pages online to print. We used to let each child make their own "coloring book" and they would clip the pages in old 3 ring binders. Then, we would ask them to make a "gift" for whoever we were going to see (Grandma / Uncle / friends) and they would color pages and then give the gift upon arrival.

Have fun.


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