We are planning a very long drive this week. We’re hitting the road before sunup and driving until way past bedtime. As a survival strategy I’ve prepared a giant set of road trip activities for kids.
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In just a short while our family is going to be taking a road trip.
A very loooong road trip.
As in, start driving at 3 AM and reach our destination after 10 PM. With five kids ages 7 and under.
And no, we don’t have a DVD player in our van.
This may sound a little crazy, but seriously? Putting all seven of us in a hotel room with a baby still waking up every two hours sounds a whole lot crazier. So I’ve been working at a creating and collecting a variety of activities to keep my crew busy for our big adventure.
Lap Boards
I have seen some amazing DIY lapboards on Pinterest. But I don’t sew beyond buttons. I don’t do well with wood, foam, or stretching fabric. I don’t even cut a straight line. So this is my version of a DIY lap board.
Find a cheap magnetic baking tray (tip – they’re not all magnetic; check first). This 9 x 13 tray cost 99 cents. Then get some markers or crayons and hot glue magnet strips to them (even adhesive strips can use that extra glue).
Anything to keep my toddler from dropping a marker every five seconds.
The sketchpad was from the dollar bin at Target.
Books on CD
Our number one activity on long car rides is reading. Thankfully, my Seven and Five can read on their own. But my Four in particular does not have patience for long trips, and he’s not ready to read independently. I’ll read aloud periodically, but it’s not something I want to do for ten hours! That’s where books on CD come in. I borrow them from the library, store them in my CD holder, and reserve multiple copies of each book so each of the big kids can follow along.
I also referred to my Best Picture Books for Kids Pinterest board and found a huge stack of new-to-us books to take along. (The hard part has been keeping my kids from reading them before the big trip!
Road Trip Printables
I searched high and low for free road trip printables. These were the best I could find because not only are they from talented bloggers, they’re also easy to download and print.
The beautiful road trip drawing prompts (empty road and truck) are from Picklebums.
The lovelyhand-drawn BINGO games are from Housing a Forest.
The simple and colorful Road Trip BINGO is from This Reading Mama.
For children who can read, Interstate BINGO is another fun printable from This Reading Mama. My Five and Seven will enjoy this one.
The Car Scavenger Hunt is from a giant set of road trip printables from 123Homeschool4Me.
Sticker Scenes
This reusable sticker pad from Melissa and Dog is totally awesome as is. But I wanted to find a way to make it work in the car. The scenes are too large for laps, and definitely for our little trays. So I decided to cut each scene in half and cut the stickers into sections. Then each child can have part of a scene and a set of stickers to play with. The scenes won’t be as striking as they would be with the full sheets, but you can’ t be choosy when you’ve got seven people jammed into a seven-passenger van.
Conversation Cards
These are 100 conversation starters in the form of “would you rather” questions. I love these! Would you rather have a pet chicken or a pet elephant? Would you rather lounge in a pool of marshmallows or M & M’s? Learn more and get your free printable cards (or simply a list of questions) in this post.
Drawing Prompts
This Complete the Picture drawing pad from Melissa and Doug is brilliant. It’s definitely too advanced for my Two and probably my Four. But I think it’s something my older two kids, ages five and seven, will really enjoy. I had to trim the pages to fit them into the small baking sheets.
Beginning Sounds Coloring Pages
I don’t do a lot of worksheets with my preschool boys, but a car trip is the perfect time to pull some out. I created this set of 26 coloring pages. They simply need to color the pictures on each letter that begin with that letter. You can get the free printable in this post.
Fairy Tale Coloring Pages
Here are some fairy tale coloring pages that my Four, Five, and Seven will all enjoy. These are a freebie that I’m currently offering to my e-mail subscribers. Learn more about them in this post.
Magnetic Matching Activities
I created these simple matching activities for my Two. He loves this sort of thing, and it will give him something to do when he’s starting to get antsy. Since there are magnets on the back of each piece to keep him from spilling them, I’m hoping that this will be easy and fun. This does take some time to assemble, but I think it will be worth it. See the tutorial and get the free printables in this post.
Color by Number Addition Pages
My Seven asked for color by number pages. I wanted to create something that would challenge her as well as give her something she enjoys, so I put addition facts on these fairy tale characters. You can get the set of ten free pages by visiting this post.
Magnetic Pattern Block Activities
We already have pattern blocks, but for this trip I bought a magnetic set of blocks so the kids can use them on their baking sheets. I found the large pattern block activities at PreKinders. I printed a transportation, snowflake, and animals set. The kids can each set a paper on their board and cover it with the magnetic blocks. I also printed the small set of designs from Kelly’s Kindergarten and bound them with a ring. (You will need to shrink her designs before printing them if you want them small.) My older kids can recreate these pictures on their boards.
Snacks, Snacks… and More Snacks
And what would a long car ride be without snacks? We don’t usually have prepackaged snacks at our house, but I’m making this trip an exception. I’m packing mini chocolate chip cookies, honey graham sticks, crispy cheddar crackers, granola bars, and bunny snacks. I’m also packing some dry cereal (a rare treat – our kids have plain yogurt with just a sprinkle of cereal for breakfast), string cheese, snap peas, and baby carrots. Plus a brand new water jug filled with ice water.
We’re ready for our trip!
After I pack the suitcases, of course…
We love these activity books too!
© 2014 – 2016, Anna G. All rights reserved.
I love this!! We regularly make a 9-10 hour car journey to see family and am always looking for ideas to keep my pre-schoolers entertained (without having to reach for dropped bottles or toys every few minutes!) Thank you.
You’re very welcome! I hope your kids enjoy a few of these ideas. As it turned out, my kids were happiest with the coloring pages, books on CD, and drawing pads. They did a little bit with the magnetic shapes and of course loved the snacks most of all. 🙂
Can’t wait til you get here!
My family is flying from SC to WA this summer. My daughters are 7 and 6, but the 6 yo is more like a 4 yo. The color pages will be WONDERFUL for them to do on the planes and at grandma and grandpa’s house when they claim to be “bored”. Thanks a lot for these wonderful resources.
You’re very welcome, Christine! We are currently enjoying our vacation, and the pages we did not do in the car (mainly the Melissa and Doug activities) have been great to fill some time at our destination.
Great Ideas! We traveling and always looking for ideas…love to bring magnetic fun!
Love your recent post about Virginia Beach… my home town!
This post couldn’t have come at a better time for my family. In the next month, we are taking 3 16 hour road trips. I have a 1 year old, a 2 year old, and a 4 year old and we will definitely be using some of your ideas! Thank you so much for all your hard work. We are planning on driving from 9pm until we get there!
Good for you for driving through the night! We are probably a little older than you, as that’s pretty hard for us. On our way to our destination we ended up getting the kids up at 4:30 AM with the plan that they would go back to sleep for a few hours. Nope! Not sure if leaving even earlier is a good or bad idea..
These are some AWESOME suggestions. I’m planning a vacation for July and we’ll be traveling roughly 13 hours in a car with a 2 and a 5 year old. Thanks so much for sharing!
You’re welcome, Brandy! I hope your kids stay content on your long trip!
Thankyou so much, this is exactly what i was looking for to amuse my kids on our next trip!! Thankyou so much for sharing!
You’re welcome, Steph! I hope you have/had a peaceful ride :).
Thanks so much for these! I’m traveling 16 hrs with a 4, 2.5 & 10 month old so looking for some activities to keep us all sane
That’s a long trip, Ali – been there! I hope it goes well for you and that you have a nice peaceful trip. 🙂
I loved your Tip Me Tuesday link. {thanks girl!} Would you like Tip Junkie to feature your blog post to over 200,000 creative women? If you upload this blog post into your Tip Junkie craft room using at least 2 images, 2 steps, and blog post URL then I can easily feature it in my RSS feed, home page, and all my social networks instantly. {squealing with delight} ~ Laurie {a.k.a. the Tip Junkie}
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Yes, yes, yes, Laurie, of course! Thank you!! I will head over to do that right away. I was just thinking yesterday I was going to send you a note to thank you for your Mom Blog to Money Blog course. I completed it this summer and learned so much, just in time to apply everything I learned to a site redesign coming next week. Excited! Thank you!!
I am probably the first dad in here. This is really cool stuff. Thanks for sharing all this. I am printing away as I speak
Not quite the first, but maybe the second. 🙂 I hope you have a great (and somewhat quiet) trip, Nick!
Man, you are so creative!!! Thank You sooo much for this!! We’re leaving in less than a month, this is doable!!
Way to go for getting started ahead of time, Jennifer! I hope you have a great time and as peaceful a car ride as possible. 🙂
Thank you for the wonderful ideas and printables. We are ready to venture out on a 15 hour drive for Spring Break with a 7 and 2 year old. Thanks to your post my “Activity Box” is complete and I have something checked off my to do list! THANK YOU!
Yay! I hope you have (had) a wonderful trip!
Thank you so much!!!!! I got a 17 hour car trip coming up and didn’t want to go out and buy a ton of things for my preschooler to do. Yes we are breaking the trip up but he is not a great car rider so this is exactly what we need.
I hope you have a wonderful trip, Cora!
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful ideas and resources. I’m now actually looking forward to our upcoming road trip with our 2 and 4 year old boys (plus an infant, but she won’t be participating in the activities :)).
You’re very welcome, Cassy! I hope you have/had a great trip!
I love these ideas! We are planning to drive to Disney in February with another family. The thought of four little girls ages two and five on a 20 + hour car ride is terrifying the parents.
Yes, I get it! 20 hours is a long time. Snacks will be your best friend. 🙂 In December we are planning a road trip to Texas with all six kids. I think it’s about 15-20 hours… I’ll have to pull out some of these to use again!
Just stumbled on this site and am delighted. I’d like to offer an alternative idea for your travel activity tray which offers built in storage.
1) Buy a roasting tin and a baking sheet that fits on the top of the roasting tin.
2) Attach magnetic strips around the top of the roasting tin, and on the bottom of the baking sheet. The sheet needs to exactly cover the roasting tin.
3) Place either a magnetic sheet, or magnetic strips on inside base of roasting tin.
4) Magnetic sheet to fit base of baking sheet (if big enough you can ignore stage 2)
You can now add magnetic strips to crayons, organza bags from Poundland/Dollar store, toys. These things can be safely stored in roasting tin.
The combined roasting tin/baking sheet are now a storage/lap tray. Little items can be stored in the organza bags or magnetized to stay in the storage area or to be used on the tray.
You could also spray paint the roasting tin/baking sheet, drill small holes at one end and using whatever you choose can be hung from the seat in front.
For very young children safely secure small magnets in small stuffies, these can be stored in the roasting tin and then stuck on to the baking sheet.
What a cool idea, Lucy! Thanks so much for sharing it!