Being in a car with two small children can be challenging! As much as the curated holiday snaps can have you believing everything is sunshine and rainbows - we all know that kids and long car trips generally don’t mix. We do own two tablets that were gifted to us by grandparents but we actually don’t use them often, the kids end up fighting over who gets the iPad and who gets the Samsung.
I wanted to share with you some other activities that get us through the “are we there yet!!!” stage. Depending on how much time you want to spend doing up a busy bag, you can make these items or source little toys through a store. I go for both options, the handmade ones seem to entertain them for longer but a mixture of both keeps things interesting.
Most of the items were hand made by me while I was pregnant with River, so they’ve been around a while! The absolute favourite would have to be the Mr Potato Head game, it is super simple to make and just requires felt, glue and scissors. I chose to take the easiest option ever and just cut out the shapes, I didn’t bother sewing anything because I am super impatient and luckily everything is still in tact 4 years on! We also used felt to make our “build a pizza” game - simply cut a circle of felt as your base then some yellow felt for cheese, maroon felt for pepperoni and whatever other toppings your kids love!
Another home made favourite is the picture puzzle, simply get some tongue depressors, line them up and glue on a family photo (or photo of your choice) use a stanley knife to cut between each tongue depressor and viola! Let the kids line them up to make the photo whole again.
Most of our store bought items are actually left over stock from a business I had with a girlfriend - “Little Roamer” unfortunately we decided to shut down shop as our busy lives took over but you should be able to source similar items elsewhere. Favourites for car trips would have to be the wooden camera, prompting the kids to take pretend photos of interesting things they see out the window. Alphabet busy bag, best suited to kids that are a little older to string together words and if you can stand noise in confined spaces - the harmonica!
Another great small edition to our busy bag is the my first iPhone from The Timba Trend. It’s a great compact wooden toy with a chalkboard painted screen, allowing the kids to draw and write on the road - if you check out their online store there are a few items I wouldn’t mind adding to our collection including “Game Board” which has a maze puzzle on one side and chalk board on the other. Pure genius!
Hopefully this post has given you a little inspiration for your next car trip - may there be whinge free road trips on your horizon!
♡