If you have any trips planned to see family and friends this holiday season, you can keep the kids occupied with this fun free printable Thanksgiving Road Trip Activity Book offered by RadRoadTrips.com. The book includes 24 pages of fun of coloring, games, puzzles and more.
It is themed around the Thanksgiving holiday, but there are quite a few pages that you can print individually without Thanksgiving content if you want to use them down the road.
When my family has a road trip planned, I routinely buy my girls a new activity book at the Dollar Store to keep them occupied and they love it. You could also pick up a few fun toys and throw them in a little bag to make a bag for the road.
Thanks, The Freebie Blogger!
Your turn: What road trips do you have planned for this holiday season and what does your family do to keep the kids occupied?
About Carrie Rocha
If anyone has ideas on how to keep kids occupied on LONG plane rides, that would be great info for me. I think I’ll try to remember to post it on an Open Mic, but any suggestions are welcome. We’re traveling with an almost 6 year old, 4 year old, and 21 month old to Hong Kong for my sister’s wedding after Cmas. Seriously, I feel so bad for the people traveling with us as my 21 month old will get tired and will be whiney and the long flight is 15 hours! Any tips? We love to travel, but have never done an international flight with 3 kids. Talk about breaking them in on the longest possible flight ever!
I was gonna say Nintendo DS and an MP3 player but your kids are probably a bit too young for those.
My best idea so far (other than loading a laptop with movies) for all three would be Etch-a-Sketch. Totally silent and somewhat mesmerizing…at least for awhile.(I think i’ve seen travel-sized ones too)
I think Etch-a-sketch is a brilliant idea – That will be something “santa” will bring them. Do they have them at Target? I haven’t seen them. I’ll google it and find them. I’ve seen people have travel sized ones before too. Thanks!
I would suggest getting a Leapster and some games. Your kids would be a good age for most of them and don’t forget to look for coupons! Other cheaper ideas, pipe cleaners for making all kinds of funny things that get their imagination going (stick people, rocket ships, or a crown). A CD of their favorite music, might lull them to sleep! Card games like Old Maid. How about making a ‘search and find’ game? Make a grid like a bingo board, put in pictures or words for things they might see (clouds, something blue, exit sign, pillow, etc.) make sure you have small ‘prizes’ for the one who clears their board first.
I’m sure with time I could come up with more, just google “plane travel with kids” and you should be able to find even more ideas. Hope that helps, and good luck!!!
Thanks Leann. We don’t have the Leapster, because we don’t do most video game toys, but I understand that it is more of an educational toy. That might have to be something Grandma and Grandpa buy for them for Christmas as well. Pipe cleaners are another good idea I hadn’t or wouldn’t have thought of. You guys are coming up with great things and it will help me with my Christmas shopping at the same time! Thanks so much!
We are also traveling – what do people do about the car seats when traveling by plane? We will need them once we get to our destination. Renting them from the car rental service was like $60 a week?
Last time we traveled by plane they allowed us to check them at the plane without a charge. Ask your travel agent or call the airline to see what their current policy is to be sure though.
Call your airline to be sure, but we have flown with all 3 kids domestically (4,2 and 9 months), and they haven’t charged for any “kid gear” – we flew Sun Country and did not have to pay for 1 stroller, 2 pack and plays and 3 carseats last Christmas. We did pay for 2 suitcases. Not bad though since we technically got 6 kid items for free.
If you fly Delta and you have a Delta AmEx credit card, you get your first bag free for each ticketed passenger – a GREAT perk for this card if you are traveling with children. 1st year you have the card there is no annual fee either.
We traveled to Bahamas with 6, 3, 1 year olds last spring. I filled lunch bags with “surprises” and numbered them. They chose a number and got a new activity to do. I put pipe cleaners/bendaroos, finger puppets, different colored painters tape, travel size doodle things, and other little toys they hadn’t seen in a while. They littlest was tougher but she loved pictures of family so we clicked through pictures on camera and put together a photo book. Also, little snacks that took time and concentration to eat…cheerios.
Thanks these are great suggestions too – I am making a list right now with all these ideas!
I second the idea of making little grab bags or just have a place in your own bag to keep some “surprises” and give them something new to do every few hours. I stock up on this stuff from the Target dollar spot or dollar stores. I like the website http://www.momsminivan.com for lots of printable things to use on car trips. The other thing you can do is go to google and type in “printable bingo” There is a website that will help you print out bingo cards and you can tailor it to any age (using pictures instead of numbers for example.)
Ok another idea. Forgive me you might not have room for all this on a plane. Give each child a metal cookie sheet and then bring along magnetic letters, numbers, pictures for them to play with. Pieces that don’t fall off helps. You can do little quizzes like, find the letter that comes after g…or practice spelling, again find age appropriate things for each to do.
Good luck!
Ooh – I like that metal tray idea – maybe I’ll try to find some smaller trays or travel size magnet boards. I’ll check out that website too!
And thanks for the luck, as I know I’m going to really need it! I think my kindergartner and 3.5 year old are going to do fine – they can keep busy with activities, you can reason with them, and they like flying. My 21 month old? That’s another story.