Taking a road trip? Every day this week I’ll be sharing a make-ahead road trip activity bag with simple snacks and activities to keep your kids happy (and you too!). Today’s theme is Space.
Store activities in brown paper lunch bags or zipper plastic bags and give them out once an hour (or at longer intervals if your kids are still interested in the bag they currently have).
ACTIVITIES
Space Snack- Enjoy your planets (fruit puff cereal) and ufos (round oat cereal). (Another fun snack is “astronaut” food like applesauce in a squeeze tube.)
Space Blob Capture-Try to capture the space blob (pom pom) in the containment unit (scoop).
Materials:
detergent scoop or measuring cup
string or yarn
pom pom
Instructions:
Using a sharp object, carefully poke a small hole in the end of the detergent cup (parents only). Thread a piece of string or yarn through the hole and tie knots so that the string cannot slip back through the hole, or secure the end of the string with tape. Tie the other end of the string around a pom pom.
To play the game, try to catch the pom pom in the scoop. Note: The longer the string, the more difficult the game is.
Starry Night- Place star stickers on black construction paper or card stock to make your own constellation. You can also use neon gel pens to draw on the paper.
Foil Meteorites- Crumple aluminum foil sheets into balls to make “meteorites”. You can use all the sheets to make one large meteorite or make multiple small ones. When you get to a rest stop, take turns throwing the meteorites into a cup or bag. (Note: For safety reasons, don’t allow kids to throw these while you are driving.)
Moon Rocks- Use Moon Dough to create moon rocks or planets of your own. (This kit cost $1.97 at my local Walmart.)
Note: Moon Dough is a little crumbly.You may want to leave it in a plastic sandwich zipper bag if small children will be playing with it and supervise them closely. It’s also a good idea to bring along a plastic bag to store everything in if you let your child open the bag on the trip.
Other Activities
Space Notes– Use star shaped sticky notes to draw aliens or write notes to mom and dad.
Reading- Add a space-themed book to the bag for children who can read.
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Print a Road Trip Activity Bag Materials List and Card here.
NOTE: I am a huge fan of letting kids get bored. They are much more open to creative suggestions when they have not been constantly bombarded by electronic stimuli and when they have had a little bit of time with “nothing to do”.
When my children were younger, I used activity bags as a special treat on our road trips. I let the children sit for a long while reading or playing with a toy until they finally got to the point where I could see that frustration was about to set in. At that point, I gave them an activity bag.
If they did everything in the bag in 15 minutes, they could sit for a few minutes and stare out the window or think about playing with something from the bag again. I strongly believe that we should not entertain our children every minute of the day (or the car trip). The longer they can go between activities, the better it will be for you and them, so don’t give them all of the bags in the first hour. 🙂 With in-car dvd players, you can split up the ride with a couple of dvds as well.
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Thanks Kimberlee-
With our big group, we usually do more stay-cations, but these ideas are still great for the “I’m bored” cries. Thanks so much for putting in the time to create the fun for us moms that cannot right now. You are greatly appreciated.
My pleasure Khalilah!
Hi Kimberlee-
Just a little note to thank you for the WEALTH of information contained in the Stress free holidays book. When I saw you included all these ideas for road trip bags I about flipped! There is a ton of resource included here. And I am really appreciating your humor and your creativity. I REALLY REALLY value what you have shared and look forward to reading updates each week. I dont have time for a ton of blogs…but yours is always worth the read.
I homeschool a 6th grader and a 1st grader and I am going to make up some of these for what we are studying for when my 6 year old needs to “have more school to do” while I am working with my 11 year old. Thanks a million!!!!
You are very welcome Christine. The good thing is that some of the materials are reusable (like the magnet boards, etc.).
I am super excited about these activity bags…we are only going three hours away for vacation, but I think it looks like so much fun. My kids will love this!!! Thank you
You are very welcome Michell. I hope they enjoy them. 🙂
We’re going on a 3,000 mile road trip this summer with my kids,4 and 6 years old! These ideas are perfect! Thanks SO MUCH! I wouldn’t have thought of doing themed plays! I’m planning on making a bag per day! 🙂
I am so glad! I knew I was putting in all that work for someone-LOL!
I also find that Model Magic works well. I try to buy them on sale, or with a coupon at Michael’s, etc.
Thanks Beth–great idea!
Cute ideas 🙂 definitely using these for a road trip coming up soon. I’m going to put the moon sand in a pencil box so they can open it and actually feel it while they play with it, but i’m not worried about a mess. lol. I’m used to it lol
Make sure that you get moon “dough”, not moon sand. It’s less messy. 🙂
Moon dough? In the car??? I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy. I hope the rest in this series are a little more thought out…this seems like a good idea with a lot of good possibilities. This looks good for a few minutes of entertainment…definitely not an hour.
Are you thinking about moonsand? This dough is non-sticky and cleans up very easily. As I mentioned in the post, if you have small children, they can mold and play with it while it is inside a closed plastic bag. The great thing about these activities is that if you don’t like something, you don’t have to do it. You can think up your own. 🙂