Thanksgiving Holiday Road Trip Ideas for Kids
What will your kids be doing in the car on your upcoming holiday road trip? Aggravating one another in the back seat? Pestering you about how much longer the trip will be? Try packing a road trip busy bag.
In the past, we have looked at ways to keep kids busy while waiting at a restaurant, quiet during a worship service and occupied in the office. Today we will be examining some ideas for keeping kids busy in the car.
Remember those books with records that you got at fast food restaurants back in the 80’s? You could play the story on your Fisher Price record player and follow along in the book.
A tone would sound when it was time to turn the page. They have the same thing on CD these days and they are great for car trips. Visit your local library and stock up before your trip.
Try a travel scavenger hunt. Have a list of items that you are looking for and hang it up on the back of the seat. When you see an item on your list, cross it off. When you have found all of the items, take a break and stop for ice cream.
If your child is old enough to take pictures, give him a camera and the task to snap photos related to a certain theme. For instance, ask him to get pictures of animals or sports cars. When he gets ten pictures in the same category, swap themes.
Give kids finger puppet gloves for pretend play. They don’t take up much room and they don’t require those prone to carsickness to read anything. Make finger puppets with a glove.
Make a car bingo set from magnets and magazine cutouts. On a sheet of paper, paste pictures of different types of cars and tape the sheet to a small cake pan. Each time your child sees one of the cars on his bingo sheet, he can cover that picture with a magnet.
Try a travel felt set. Cover a shoebox lid with an adhesive felt sheet and store felt pieces inside of the box. Make your own felt sets or browse the selections at Genesis Arts.
Use a travel-themed sorting and patterning game like the Sorting Suitcase from Learning Resources. The suitcase-shaped box comes with colorful socks, shirts and shorts along with instruction cards that ask kids to sort and pattern them in various ways.
Don’t forget about dollar store toys like silly putty, shuffler puzzles, Wooly Willy, golf tees, sticker books, water games and bead mazes. Bring out a new toy every hour or so.
When the sun goes down and the dark makes it difficult for kids to play in the car, try pulling out a pack of linkable glowing necklaces (available at Dollar Tree) to keep kids occupied. Try string art or finger weaving.