For my family’s seven-day, seven-state family road trip earlier this summer, I needed to be armed with some quality activities for the car. Sure, the kids had their Nintendos and iPods, but I knew there would be times when I’d want them to unplug, so here are three items I brought along, and our firsthand reports:
Stickers! and Incredible Stickers!: These colorful paperback books are simply charming and fun to flip through. I’m not surprised they were originally published in Japan, as some of the characters remind me of that chubby little Hello Kitty that is so popular among Japanese schoolchildren. In each, kids are encouraged to decorate a page spread with stickers found in the back of the book; stickers are sorted by color and numbered, as well, so the stickers intended for each page (say, candles for a birthday cake or mittens for snowmen) are labeled. Of course, there are no rules, and kids can decorate as they see fit!
I’m partial to the Incredible Stickers theme, where images of donuts become spaceships to detail, and a slice of bread becomes a house that is begging for colorful windows. Triangle-shaped sandwiches are mountain peaks and heads of broccoli are giant trees. The pages are super clever and little kids will find them super silly.
Preschoolers might need some help peeling and sticking, but these books are “play alone” activity for anyone over age five. In fact, I think kindergarteners are the ideal age for the sticker books. Still, my 8- and 10-year-olds got a kick out of the goofy scenarios, and from the back seat, while they were playing with them, I’d hear things like, “Look mom – the radishes are dancing!”
The books retail for $7.95 each on the Seven Footer Press website. I also found them on Amazon.com.
Children’s Travel Journal: My tween-age daughter fell in love with this spiral-bound, black-and-white diary on sight. She’s a “fill in the blanks” type of kid, and was pleased to find that she didn’t have to “write from scratch” on each page. Instead, she drew pictures and filled in a calendar of the dates that we’d be gone, and answered questions about “why we chose this destination” and “what I’m most looking forward to.”
While on the trip, she detailed a page titled “Landmarks” about our trip to St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, and on the “Museum and Galleries” page she wrote about our excursion to Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Opposite these topic-centric pages are blank pages for writing and sketching. I like that the pages are made from cardstock and the cover is clear plastic with an elastic fastener — the book is meant to last, since it’s preserving important vacation memories.
One caveat: This journal seems like it would best fit a child who is traveling to a foreign country, since it has a world map inside to trace the route of the trip, an area to jot down the currency exchange rate, and a section to write translations for common words like “hello,” “good-bye” and “where’s the bathroom.” Still, my daughter enjoyed filling in the blanks where it was appropriate on our U.S. vacation.
The book is available for $15 on The Little Bookworm website.
Morph-O-Scopes Packets: My art-project-loving daughter also had fun with this activity, where you color a “morph” — a thoroughly distorted black and white image — and then place a curved Mylar mirror on top of it to reflect the “correct” picture. See at right, where it’s hard to tell what the heck you’re coloring on the page, but the picture appears as clear as day in the “cup” above. To figure out where exactly you’re coloring, you need to look at the cup, but put your crayon on the paper. The optical illusion requires a bit of hand-eye coordination and brain power, for sure.
My kids used their own crayons and markers with the “Stretched Pets” packet, which came with five morphed coloring pages and a self-hooking mirror “decoder,” all packaged in a clear plastic hanging bag. (Fairies and dinosaurs are two other themes.) But you can also buy Morph-O-Scopes Kits, which come with 32 activity pages — mazes and games, in addition to the coloring pages — as well two mirror decoders and 16 crayons, all in a carrying case.
The Morph-O-Scopes Packets sell for $7.99 and the Morph-O-Scopes Kits for $19.99 on the manufacturer’s website.
More kids’ travel activities:
#1 by Josefina Argüello - August 22nd, 2010 at 16:07
In our 13 years of traveling with small children, we have found it to be more economical to rent a house, condo, or apartment rather than staying in a hotel. This is especially beneficial for large families, who would be obligated to pay for two hotel rooms. Traveling in the off-season can also save money on housing costs. We’ve found that scheduling a vacation for the first few weeks of May can be significantly less expensive than traveling in July, during peak tourist season.