I started researching road trip activities for a toddler and thought I would share what I have found. I also asked for tricks/tips on Facebook and found a few blogs on Pinterest that had some really good ideas:
So after sifting through all of those suggestions this is what I landed on
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| The activity bin |
I went to the dollar tree and got some pencil bags to hold some of the activities and make "busy bags." I also purchased pipe cleaners, pom poms, a deck of cards, a coloring book, dress-up sunglasses/bracelets and post-it notes from there. I love dollar tree.
The first "busy bag" I made has some dress-up sunglasses/bracelets, stickers, and post-it notes. She is really into opening and closing zippers right now, so I plan on just giving her the bag and letting her go crazy with its contents.
The other bag has some more post-it notes, a notepad and crayons. Simple enough. Mia loves Doc McStuffins, so I was glad to find this coloring book at the dollar tree.
The third bag has magnets that we will use with a cake pan. I was going to use a cookie sheet at first, but the blogs I read suggested using a pan with edges to try to contain the magnets. I bought these magnets and will just use a cake pan from home.
I cut some pipe cleaners in half and put them in a travel cup that has a screw on lid and a straw hole. I am just going to let her go to town pulling them out and putting them back in the cup (side note: I will be in the back seat with her, so I will be supervising her play with these and will make sure she doesn't injure herself on the metal center).
When I saw the wallet idea on Pinterest, I thought it was brilliant! What toddler doesn't love to pull cards out of wallets?!? So I filled up an old wallet with cards I don't mind her playing with and put it in her "purse" with a play phone and another small toy.
I put the pom poms I purchased in some containers I found around the house and will let her imagination run wild with them.
This next activity should keep Mia entertained for a while. I put some washcloths in a wipe container and will let her pull them out to her little heart's content. She keeps busy doing this with Kleenex (when I'm not looking), so this seems like a much more appropriate use of energy.
I got the idea of letting her play with a deck of cards from a blog post, it's the same concept of most of these activities. Pull stuff out...put it back in...repeat.
And just in case that doesn't keep her occupied and happy during the car trip, I also purchased her a Water Wow! coloring pad. Apparently you just fill the pen up with water and then color the pages with it. It's also reusable, since once the water dries it goes back to black and white! I'll have to let you guys know how it works!
We also had to go ahead and get her a classic, a Magnadoodle. We have been letting her play with this and she really enjoys drawing on it and can easily erase it.
We went ahead and got a Sesame street DVD just in case none of this works, HA! My mom's van has a DVD player and she also plans on bringing some of our old DVDs. I had a co-worker suggest we go to the library and check out DVDs; which I thought was a great idea, but I won't have time before we leave because of work...maybe next time!
Last, but not least I made sure to stock up on snacks for the car. I went with graham crackers, pretzels, fruit bars, sweet potato "puffs," dried fruit, and some squeezable baby food.
And since we can't let Mia have all the fun I am going to bring some games for the rest of us to play.
I hope you all have a great Labor day weekend...wish us luck during our road trip!
I love these ideas, Steph! Happy Labor Day, weekend! See you in a few weeks!
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