We survived our 3366 mile road trip with three kids, without a DVD player too! Here's what we did:
1. Dry erase activity books for each, with their own markers. Both kids loved using these books, their favorite part was the map of the United States to color.
2. Wrapped presents from the dollar store to give them periodically throughout the trip. The above picture is of them unwrapping their first one, stuffed dolphin for Rebekah, a whale for Caleb. Rebekah is telling me she doesn't like it and is about to chuck it across the van... so the presents didn't work out quite so well (I think she threw three of them, but then picked them up and played with them later). Caleb spent a lot of time begging for another one, which was annoying.
3. Plastic baskets to hold their markers, toys, books, paper and stickers. These were perfect for holding all their stuff. I didn't get a before picture when they were neat, but below are a couple after pictures. Caleb's is much fuller since Rebekah threw most of her stuff (she was a little challenging when she didn't get her own way). The m & m box was actually stuffed in a cup holder type thing to prevent the basket from moving around. Rebekah's was tied to a cardboard box to make it higher so she could reach it.
4. Adventures in Odyssey Audiobooks to listen too.
5. By the Shores of Silver Lake book to be read to them by me.
6. Kids CD of Sunday school songs, which was the biggest hit.
7. Looking for animals out the window, we saw buffalo, elk, a coyote, big horn sheep, deer, prairie dogs, and lots of birds.
8. The promise of a hotel with a pool. (Only used on the first and last days since those were the only ones we knew for sure would have a pool.)
That's how we survived. I'd love to hear about your road trip! Leave me a comment or join the facebook page.
This sounds a lot like what we did when traveling 8 hours to Tennessee this summer.
ReplyDeleteEach boy (ages 4.5 and almost 3) started the trip with a full spill-proof water bottle and a mini backpack. They were warned that if they dumped the backpack, they wouldn't get it back until we stopped the car for a potty break/lunch.
The backpacks had several HotWheels cars/toy airplanes, a small Angry Birds sticker book from the dollar store, a few favorite picture books (including one new book for each boy) , and a mini Cars 2 coloring book & crayons from the dollar store.
At the bottom of the backpack, I "hid" a roll of Smarties, a snack bag of goldfish crackers, and a lollipop.
This worked well for my older son, but the younger one dumped his backpack on the floor within the first 10 minutes and had to borrow a car and a book from his brother to keep him occupied until we reached our rest stop 2 hours later. He quickly learned to keep his backpack close! ;)
I made the mistake of putting a small, soft ball in my 3 year old's bag. I don't know what I was thinking. He threw it at my husband, who was driving. Oops!
We do have a portable DVD player that comes out for the last hour of an 8 hour car drive. It saves everyone's sanity...but it's only a last resort! (We also used that to let the baby watch a praise songs video when she had a screaming fit. She doesn't watch TV at home, but she sure liked it in the car!)
Tennessee is beautiful, that's where we went on our honeymoon! My husband has had a few things chucked at him while driving too! I'm not against watching movies, we just don't want our kids glued to a screen for several hours and miss seeing the sights, which is kinda the point of a trip!
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