The following is a guest post by Contributing Writer, Staci. Staci is a local resident, middle school teacher, 31 Gifts Independent Consultant and author of the lifestyle blog Simply Staci.
If you have some vacations or get-aways planned this summer, then chances are there’s a road trip involved. I can hear the groans now!
Of course, nowadays road trips consist of video players, ipads, PSPs, ipods and any other electronic you can think of. And while those are certainly options, it’s just not very practical (or dare I say, wise!) for every minute of a looooong road trip.
I recently took an 8 hour road trip with my sister and her kids, 3 year old and 6 year old. Did you catch that? EIGHT hours on the road with a THREE and SIX year old. I’m affectionately known in my family as “Aunt FunTime” so I figured I’d better have some tricks up my sleeve!
Road Trip Snacks
First up were some SNACKS. Since it was an 8 hour trip, I timed it out to have one snack 2 hours into the drive. Then another 2 hours after lunch. Hopefully that would tide them over the final 2 hours of the trip.
I decided to make each kid their own snack pack with a combination of lots of different snacks.
Snack 1:
Blueberries/mandarin oranges
Bugles
Banana chips/crasins
Teddy Grahams/M&Ms
Oreos
Snack 2:
Strawberries
M&M’s/Cream filled cookies from Target’s Dollar Spot
Peanut butter crackers
Pringles
Mini Pop Tarts
Some other things you could use are popcorn, gummi bears, nuts, trail mix, grapes, string cheese, fruit snacks…the possibilities are endless.
Road Trip Activities
While the snacks were a big hit, the kids also wanted something to do. Here are a few of the ACTIVITIES I had planned:
- Coloring books
- Books on CD
- Chapter Books (to read aloud or have the kids read separately)
- Stencils, like these below
- And then we threw in some Leapster Games and a movie.
All in all, it honestly didn’t seem like an 8 hour trip. We listened to songs, made up stories, and played traditional games like I Spy.
Road Trip Tracker
I also want to share with you the coolest thing my friend Tricia made, The Vacation Trip Tracker. You will want to run out right now and make this. It would’ve really come in handy for all those “Are we there yets?”
Stay Connected with Staci
31 Gifts – Independent Consultant
Photo Source – D Sharon Pruitt
Love the ideas particularly the way you pack the snacks! We love to play License Plate Bingo and Count the Cows when we road trip as well,
Also, I find that having a child pack their own small backpack with their favorite small items helps with the anticipation of travel as well as pulling out a map and highlighting were we are going.
Ooh, I love the idea of highlighting on a map. So fun!
We have taken many road trips and one thing that we like to do is every kid starts with a small baggie of change (couple dollars worth) and over the course of the trip they can lose money for arguing or misbehaving BUT they can also earn money for being helpful to another sibling or helpful to us or things like that. THEN when we reach our final destination they get to use their money to buy a souvenir.
Where dis u get stencils ?