Travel Activities for Young Kids

DVD player works wonders! We also have doodle pads and coloring books/crayons. We let each kid pack a small backpack of toys and books they want to bring. A pillow and small blanket is great for a long trip also.

Hey, someone suggested to me giving each one a shoebox of only-in-the-car stuff. Like things from the dollar store, and some snacks. And looking up car games to do. We already take along a DVD player.

We have the same spacing for our kids, 2 years!! We have taken several long car trips with them. The Leap pads have been a blessing! We have a little touch and a regular one. Lots of books, slinky, anything new. I usually make a trip to the dollar store and stock up before a trip.
Good Luck and Enjoy these famlily times!!!
Blessings, K.

We just took our daughters, 4 1/2 and 3, to Canada - from Grand Rapids. It was roughly a 7 1/2 hour drive. Both of our girls got our old iPods so they were able to listen to their own songs, with their own earphones. Granted iPods for kids that young is crazy - but even cheap CD players (I've seen them at Target for $9.99) would do the same trick. I also packed each girl a small travel bag. They got to pick out a couple of small items that they wanted in the car to play with, and I added some books. In the past I also did coloring books. A friend just took her two daughters, just under 3 and 9 months, to Florida for Spring break and she got those portable DVD players for each girl. This way the youngest, who still faces backwards could watch some shows, and the oldest could watch her own.

My kids all have magnadoodles for car trips. We also have lots of Crayola color wonder stuff. We usually have a music CD with kid music for them to listen to.
We also try to leave around nap or bed time so they sleep for a bit. Have a safe and fun vacation!

Hi B.,

I'm not sure what city you live in but I work at a great locally owned educational toy store. We have some great car and airplane games for those age groups! We only have one store right now and we're in Grand Rapids but we ship items all of the time. If you'd like to call the store we can tell you all of the games we have, I'll give you the web sight but it only has a few of the games on it right now. Minds In Motin is the name of the store and the number is ###-###-#### and the web wight is http://www.gr8mindsinmotion.com/1835114.html, I hope this helps:)

S.

We have been on many long trips with our children (now 9, 7, and 4). We have never had a DVD player for the car so we have relied on books, color wonder, a few simple hand-held battery operated games, lacing cards (a clean old lace-up tennis shoe occupied one of our children most of the way to Minnesota!), look out the window games, snacks, snacks, snacks (nothing too unhealthy). We usually only got Happy Meals on trips, so the toy was a treat for them too. Happy travelling - I know those trips are always exhausting for whichever adult is in the passenger seat!

My family made a trip from Michigan to Colorado every year and 1/2 from the time I was pregnant with my first child, and I had 4. It's a 24 hr. trip. I used to bring a "travel suitcase" for the children with little gifts wrapped up and pass them out every 2 or 3 hours during the daytime drive. Colored pencils (divided), coloring books, board books, small action figures, hotwheels, activity books, gummy bears, m&m's, baseball hat, sometimes suggestions for games - I spy, license plates, colors, etc.
Sometimes I would choose their "gift" and sometimes I'd let them pick. Usually wrapped the same "type" of gift in the same paper (i.e. 4 sets of colored pencils in the same paper, 4 pkg of each one's preferred candy in the same paper). I put names on those that were specific (i.e. - activity book for older while coloring book for younger). I kept the gifts "even" as best I could.
My children, the last one finishing college next year, all remember the fun of the travel suitcase.
Also - stop a lot to move around! When you get to a rest area that has some space, play tag or jumprope or race the cars everyone got in the travel bag - give it a "10 minute car break" limit if you are in a hurry.
Enjoy!

I put activity folders together for each of my kids when we go on trips. I find a different printables on various websites (Nickelodein, Disney, FamilyFun, etc - find sites of shows the kids like or educational sites). Things like mazes, word searches, brain teasers, etc. Also look on state sites or attraction sites for the places that you are planning to visit and see if there are activities that could be printed. Be sure to print any answer key pages. I also buy small toys or games (travel size or card games) to hand out when boredom sets in. I've done this numberous times and it is always a hit and keeps the kids occupied for long periods of time. The best part, we rarely hear "Are we there yet?" Have fun!

Hands down, THE best 'keep them busy for hours' thing we ever took into the long car trips was cheap, multi-colour packs of makeup. The scent was annoying (and if you feel like it, buying better quality stuff would eliminate that) but the painted each other's faces, arms, legs, car seats, dolls, paper, the walls of the car... They had a fantastic time, mostly with the eye shadows, which pretty much brushed off the uphostery when we got home, and was easy to wash off them when we stopped at restaurants and hotels. I see no reason to restrict this kind of 'painting' to girls.

We also played 'see if you can find' games outside the car, which can be scaled to be difficult for adults or super-easy for little kids. If you have more than one adult, you can play MadLibs (or games like it) with all the kids able to add silly words to make ridiculous sentences.

Memory games like 'we're all going to grandmother's house' can be fun, but a little over the head of the smallest ones. Sing-along cds or tapes are good, as are personal sound systems so the kids can listen to what each of them want to.

Also, we found it really, really important to have lots of drinks and healthy snacks, pretty much non-stop. We had a bag of toys that they'd never seen before (or hadn't seen in ages) to hand out whenever things got bored... and stopped at rest stops really frequently to throw a ball around, stretch legs, get fresh water or whatever.

B.,

My children are 6 and 4 and we travel 10 hours to visit family. We have a DVD system in our vehicle but before that we had a portable one - it really comes in handy on looooong drives. We also keep a Magna Doodle (small one) and an Etch-A-Sketch in the car. Small figures for them to play with also come in handy. When this gets boring we can always play I Spy out the window i.e. I Spy something blue.

My mother-in-law has also played a game where she sees trees and asked the children to tell her what they think lives in the trees. This has always encouraged them to think about where other animals live.

I hope this helps!

I bring my laptop with a few movies for the little ones to watch :) by the time the movie is over its time to stop for gas and stretch :) works great!!!

(an inverter to turn cigarette lighter to 110 plug in is like $20 we have one in each car just in case!)

Crayola color Explosion--I think that is the name. Very fun for all ages (my son still liked it on our last long trip and he was 9). You color on this special paper w/ markers that aren't a color until it's on the paper.

3-4 times per year we travel to Kansas and Missouri to visit our family with our kids, now 2.5 and 4.5. Its a 12-17 hour trip depending on where we are going. In addition to coloring, books and movies, we keep a soccer ball in the car and when the kids can't take it any more, we get out and kick the soccer ball around at rest stops, big gas stations (usually there is a little grass off to the side out of the way) or anywhere we need to burn off a little steam. After 10-15 minutes, we can get back in the car and all go for another couple of hours. Also, we plan our stops for major meals at malls. This way we all get to eat whatever sounds good and the kids can get out and run around no matter what the weather. Some malls even have play areas in them. Finally, Target has these little punch through car bingo games that my four year old loves. When you see something on your board outside of the car, you punch out the square. We always play to blackout which takes longer. Good LUck!

We just completed a 20+ hour drive to Florida and back with our 2-1/2 yr old. We borrowed a portable DVD player and rented "movies" from the library. It worked wonders! Also, we stopped for the night on each leg - had a pizza picnic in the hotel room as we knew he wouldn't sit in a restaurant after being cooped up in the car all day!

I Hear you, Boy I have been there.I am a mother of 4. Only one at home now she is 14 next month.My 3 oldest have ADHD and traveling was always a nightmare. I always packed a bag of coloring books, ect.And snacks of course. But we always had a fun box of music [tapes] Ray stevens for example. And that was our traveling music on road trips. It did help a great deal.They were funny happy songs and made them laugh instead of fight, well for a while anyways. Hope this was a little helpful.
T.

I have the same exact age differences and sexes of my children now 13,11 and 9. The other suggestions are great and I used them as well. We travel 12 hours one way to my parents 3-4 times a year. I don't know how long your trip is, but here's some things that worked for me. Snacks in containers that CLOSE! I got the Sunny D bottles v. Capri Sun and that saved a lot of messes. Ziploc bags with small portions of snacks v. the large bag the WILL get dumped eventually.

We also had a VCR (DVD) player now. This is one part of the trip the kids are in charge of packing. I refuse to let them play video games for 6-12 hours. I get a new movie (Alvin and the Chipmunks for the spring break trip) and they each get to chose two others. We did have a 6 hour tape of continuous Barney shows. Sometimes they watch. Sometimes it's just the familiarity and timing they need. When they ask "How much farther?" You can just say two more shows or one more movie. It keeps them quiet for 1.5 to 2 hours.

I would also plan to sit in the back if they haven't done this before. They can't reach things they drop and it will save some anxiety later.

GO to the dollar store and get some little suprises and wrap them and every little bit give them one. Like if your going over states one at the beginning of every state. Then there are the old car games that we always played slug bug cadillac whac but put your own spin so they don't hit eachother.

My daughter gets carsick, and we have found books on tape to be WONDERFUL. You can check them out from the public library:)

If they don't get carsick, there are some great car/travel bingo games where the kid shave to look for things and mark their cards (your 3 & 5 year old might like this.)

If you do not already have one - A car DVD system. We take many long car trips and it si 100% worth the cost (you can get they pretty inexpensive). I always buy a few new movies before the trip and surpise them with them at the time they need to calm down the most.

Happy traveling