Activities for kids in the car

We Are planning a very long drive this week. We're hitting the road before sunup and pushing until way past bedtime. As a survival plan I have prepared a giant set of road excursion activities for kids. In Just a brief while our family is going to be taking a road trip. A 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 do not have a DVD player in our van. This May sound a little crazy, but badly? Putting all seven people in a hotel room with a baby still waking every 2 hours sounds a whole lot crazier. So I have been working at a creating and collecting a variety of actions to keep my crew occupied for our big adventure, 2 Seater trucks for kids and toddlers.

Magnetic Pattern Block Activities

We Already have pattern blocks, but for this trip I purchased a magnetic set of cubes so the children can use them in their baking sheets. I found the massive pattern block activities at PreKinders. I published a transportation, snowflake, and animals set. The kids can every set a newspaper in their board and cover it with the magnetic blocks. I also printed the small set of designs from Kelly's Kindergarten and jump them with a ring. (You will need to shrink her layouts prior to printing them should you'd like them little.) My older kids can recreate these images onto their own boards.

Books on CD

Our Number one action on long car rides is studying. Thankfully, my Seven and Five can read by themselves. However, my Four in particular does not have patience for long trips, and he is not prepared to read independently. I'll read aloud periodically, but it is not something I wish to do for ten hours! That's where books on CD come in. I borrow from the library, save them in my CD holder, and book multiple copies of every book so each of the big children can follow along. I Also referred to my Best Picture Books for Kids Pinterest plank and found a huge stack of new-to-us books to take along. (The hard part has been keeping my children from reading them until the big trip!

Sticker Scenes

This Reusable decal pad out of Melissa and Dog is completely awesome as is. However, I wanted to locate a way to make it work in the car. The scenes are too large for laps, and definitely for our small trays. So I chose to cut every scene in half and cut the decals into sections. Then each kid can have part of a scene along with a set of stickers to perform with. The scenes will not be as striking as they would be with the full sheets, but you can' t be choosy when you've got seven people jammed to a seven-passenger van.

Color by Number Addition Pages

My Seven asked for color by number pages. I wanted to make something that would challenge her as well as give her something she loves, so I put addition details on these fairy tale characters. You can find the listing of ten complimentary pages by visiting this post.

Snacks, Snacks... and Much More Snacks

And What would a lengthy car ride be without snacks? We do not generally have prepackaged snacks in our house, but I am making this trip an exclusion. I am packaging miniature chocolate chip cookies, honey graham sticks, crispy cheddar crackers, granola bars, and bunny bites. I am also packing some dry cereal (a rare treat -- that our children have plain yoghurt 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.