Well, we survived our 13 hour road trip to and from my home state of Texas! It feels so great to be home, however, I wish I could pick up our house and move it close to family and friends! It's so wonderful to be able to visit, but saying good-bye is never fun. On top of high emotions of the going excitement and then having the good-bye blues returning, high anxiety came in at a close second. The thought of spending time packed in a car with two kids under the age of 4 for 13 hours had me going bannanas leading up to our vacation. No matter how much I browsed and made sure that we were covered at all angles, the vision of a 13 hour melt down seemed to take center stage in my mind. Thank goodness for all the mamas who have gone before me and were so kind to share there preperations on Pinterest!
I gathered a few ideas from them as well as added a few that just so happened to pop in mind(I know that was you GOD, thank you as always!) and I eventually configured a road trip activity bag that kept my toddler happy for the entire ride! I Know... I Know What Your Thinking - that I'm bending the truth. I can honestly say that having all my ducks in a row, as painful and daunting as it may be, our family did indeed survive a long distance road trip and yours can too!
These are a few items that I just happened to come across through my "road trip activity" search. You may need to tweak with items that will work best for your toddler's specific age, gender and/or developmental stage.
1. IPAD: We use our iPad for many things, however, for this road trip it was mainly used for playing app. games as we did not have Wifi or cellular coverage. The IPAD case is wonderful and so durable, it can be found here. Don't forget your car charger!
2. TRAVEL TRAY: This Tray is a must for car travel with kiddos. It's a great surface for crafts and activities as well as meal time. The side pockets are perfect for holding everything your little traveler may need and that they can retrieve themselves.
3. COUNTING CARDS & CLOTHESPINS: This is a wonderful activity that allows your little traveler to practice their numbers, counting and fine motor in a colorful and fun way!
4. DO A DOTS ACTIVITY SHEETS: This is an awesome way to keep your kiddo entertained while exercising their little brain. Do A Dot Markers are great for this. If you forget to pick up a pack of markers, like I did, any markers will do. We used round stamps we had laying around, which worked just as fine.
5. MAKE A FACE STICKER BOOK: This is a big hit with our little one. McKenzie could go for hours dressing up the character's faces with the many sticker options.
6. PIPE CLEANER & BEADS: Our little one loved stringing the beads onto the pipe cleaners, creating bracelets and necklaces for her grandma whom we were traveling to visit. We also used this as a way to practice counting and color matching. Purchased from dollar tree!
7. DRY ERASE CRAYON BOARD: This made for a wonderful blank slate allowing for free-drawing and coloring. It comes with crayons, crayon sharpener and a cloth eraser. No marker caps to loose or marker odor to worry about. Love this item!
8. STICKER SCENE ACTIVITY PACK: Another purchase from Dollar Tree! This pack comes with a cardboard scene with a glossy finish along with stickers to create a fun town scene!
9. PORTABLE DVD PLAYER: We purchased a portable dvd player since we do not have an in-car entertainment system and our IPAD is pretty much maxed out on memory. This dvd player came in quite handy and did not cost an arm and leg. It comes with headphones and a car charger. We picked up a few of our daughter's favorite NICK JR. DVD's that were on sale! :)
Here are a few "ACTION" shots I took while we were on the road! Excuse the blurry images, I-Phones and bumpy roads don't mix.
I thought I would share our "ACTIVITY BINDER" I used to house all of our activity sheets and crayons. It came in handy, as it kept everything in one place. No digging around on this road trip! I found this pretty binder cover and simply added verbage using picmonkey.com. I found a similar design here.