In light of COVID-19 we’re all doing far more car travel for family vacations, which often means we’re in the car for much longer than we have been in recent years. A few weeks ago we drove up to Nantucket which was 4+ hours in the car followed by a 2 hour ferry ride. Needless to say, I needed to get creative with activities for my three year old. I don’t shy away from screen time or snacks- which generally can keep her attention- but given the length of the trip, I thought it would be good to diversify my options. I recently saw a post from one of my favorite kids activity and learning bloggers, @chasing40toes where she made activity binders for their road trips. She filled it with fun, and educational worksheets and games, and I loved that it could be saved as a keepsake from the trip. So I went ahead and took a page out of her book (literally) and made an Activity Binder for our trip to Nantucket. Here’s what I included (based on her recommendations!):
- Dry Erase Marker with wipe-off top attached with a string and duct tape to the binder. I tied mine with some gimp to one of the binder rings.
- A Google Maps printout of our travel route. I put this in the front left pocket.
- Sheet protectors so kids can write and wipe on worksheets, mazes, etc.)
- A three ring pencil case with crayons
- Dot stickers and dot sticker activity printables
- Coloring pages, worksheets, word searches, mazes (most of this can be found online for free or for a small fee for access to unlimited downloads)
- Stickers
- Blank Paper
The best part about this is that you can make it unique to your child, their interests and their age/skill level. Here’s some examples of what was inside our Travel binder.
