We are making our road trip list and checking it twice!   We are looking forward to our fourth cross-country roadtrip with three preschoolers and an infant in the car.   Each trip we look for, and implement new tips and tricks to help us survive the drive.   This year I have our toddler clipping toy packed, am accumulating snacks for our ever-hit, I Spy Snack Packs, and hope to implement these ideas from recent participants in our It’s Playtime Link-party (some are from previous weeks). . road trip activities for kids

Ultimate Road Trip Tips

Kinderpendent has two free-printable cards full of I Spy Prompts.   We are printing some for my preschoolers – almost everything on the list are things commonly found in houses, and in cars!   Thanks Alexandra!   You rock!

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In this kids crafts blog post, Deidre made a I Spy window that her son can use to match shapes while they travel.   What a great way to keep children’s brains active during a ride.

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Amy of Serving Pink Lemonade made cool games 4 kid.   It is a twist on the potato head, only, her’s is a DIY cardboard robot.   I know my gal will enjoy dressing up her robot and my son will enjoy, well, boy things.   It is a perfect quiet car craft.

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On a road trip with toddlers you need to get them moving.  Little Family Fulong created a game meant to be used out-of-the-car, I think we can tweak it to become a great way to liven up a trip.   We can wiggle in our seats or give ourselves a hug.   I am going to add a few more “activities” like paddle our legs, make animal noises, wink at each other, etc.   Thanks Linda for the inspiration!

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Our bucket pulley system was a huge hit when I was 8 months pregnant and stuck seated for 26 hours.   There was no way I was able to reach anything that dropped or hand the kids stuff.   We hope to use a bucket pulley system again this year.   If the kids want something, I’ll send it back via bucket – seriously brilliant (thanks hubs for scheming this plan up)!

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…And an activity bag.   We made one last year, but I am always looking for new and different things to add to our “activity box”.   Thanks Jane of Mama Pea for your collection of travel game ideas.

. All that is missing is …

Roadtrip spongebob!

What do your kids “have to have” on their trips??



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5 Comments

  1. Hey I’ve got a question. We are taking our first long trip, from Florida to texas, about 16 hours. How did you do overnight. Did you drive through the night? We are planning to leave right after dinner and hope our 2-1/2 yr old will sleep all night. Any tips/advice?

  2. I just found your linky & site! I have been missing out! 🙂

    We are going on our very first extended vacation ROAD TRIP this summer driving from FL to NY and stopping along the way! I am both excited and nervous! My girls are 4 & 5 so it should be ok but I am loving your ideas & will definitely be incorporating a few into our trip – especially the idea of the activity bag!

    I definitely have had my eye out for fun and inexpensive “new” things to pack away until the trip so they would be a novelty and more fun to play with!

    Thanks for the linky – just linked up for the first time!

    Bernadette

  3. What a fun link up! Love the ideas here and will be enjoying blog hopping around this weekend! Thanks Quirky:)

  4. Thanks for posting these ideas! We are headed on a long trip in about 2 weeks, so I’m soaking up all these ideas.

    Also, I’m going to make “I spy” bottles with the small items the kiddos have to find among a bunch of rice. I’m already collecting small items around the house.