Road Trip with Kids

We just took a long trip across country, and it took us 5 days to do. To be honest I was terrified to be in the car with my little boys for that long. I didn't know how it was going to go and I thought they were going to hate it and scream the entire time. But guess what?!?!  I was floored with how well our boys did! And it actually turned out to be a really enjoyable trip. 

I wanted to keep electronics out of the picture for as long as I could. And for the first two days (15 hours) the boys didn't use them. The following three days we watched one movie a day but that was it. They were really entertained by the activities I had for them, and seem to enjoy the trip going old school.  

So these are just some ideas I had in my massive bag for them to do while we traveled across country.

Flash cards. (From Target)

These could keep the boys entertained for hours. Tayte loves going through the animals and making the sounds for each card. He would go through them making the sounds and then I would go through them and it would go back and forth. Daxton loved the Traffic signs and as we went through them we tried to find them outside and got excited when we made a match!

Coloring books:

Both the boys loved to be able to color as much as they want. 

Water Bottles (from Stuck on You)

These were life savers I tell ya! The boys never fought about which bottle was 'theirs'. These water bottles come personalized with their names on it, score! Also, this was the only thing they were in charge of. So if they wanted a drink they knew exactly were it was. 

Pencil and pencil sharpener.

The boys had fun just turning the pencil in the sharpener. They were amazed to see how a pencil got sharp.

Magnet Kit ( from Melissa and Doug)

This was so fun to have and the boys played with it for hours.

These were all presents that I had wrapped up. Some of them were from the dollar store or target $1 bin, or from Amazon. I had a few more that are not pictured, but the boys really loved opening a present and it helped entertain them for a bit. It also helped when the boys were having a hard time getting back into the car after a gas station stop. It was a good motivator. 

Lace pictures.

These were great for the boys. It took lots of concentration.

Magnets.

We didn't end up getting to this, but it'll be great for future trips

I bought a couple of used books (new to them) for the boys and read them to the boys. They also had fun looking at them by themselves. 

Stickers! Stickers! Stickers!! 

These were like the main source of entertainment. It also helped to have such a wide variety so that the boys didn't feel like they were doing the same thing, 

Pop Toobs. 

These were a fun gift that I wrapped. I purchased them from Amazon. They provided a lot of entertainment as they were made into snakes, telephones, elephant trunks... you get the point. 

Some other things that we did that are not pictures:

Play-do, drawing, we would sing a lot of songs, look out the window, learn new words, listen to music, put mustache stickers on, bubble wrap (they loved popping them!), toy figurines.

And snacks that were easy and not messy: string cheese, apples, snap peas, trail mix, cranberries, apple juice, popcorn and fruit snacks (fruit snacks were used in desperate situations or just because they were really good and they really look forward to them!)

Overall, the last tip I want to stress  is for the parents to have a positive attitude! To talk about how fun it is to see things and move around. We talked about how lucky we were to stay in hotel rooms and maybe even go swimming (ps swimming is a great tool for tiring them out before you start a long day of driving!) We talked about how we won't even want to get out of the car because we'll be having so much fun in the car. So being positive is a great key!

Sometimes it helps to get ideas from others so I hoped this help. Do you have a some great ideas for keeping kids entertained? I would love to add to my stash! :)