Vacation Time!

It is almost summer which means.

VACATION TIME!

Are you getting ready for vacation?

Here are some helpful hints for traveling the car with small children. If you are not prepared it can be a disaster.  Children have short attention spans and spending several hours in the car can seem like days if they get bored. I have come up with a list of easy and mess free activities for children in the car. 

Paint in a bag! 

This activity is mess free and a wonderful sensory activity! Children can draw picture after picture and simply "erase" with their hands. This is great for children to practice writing letters and numbers and They will love it! You can use multiple colors and  different size bags. Have flash cards with letters in a photo album for the children to practice writing their letters. =) great practice that they will love to do!

I used Crayola paint and a sandwich bag. 

Kids love to color =) You can have coloring books and crayons or colored pencils. I have also seen some amazing ideas using empty DVD cases like the ones shown below. 

1. You can have a piece of paper under the front cover and use the case as a dry erase board. The children can write draw and color on these and use a sock, glove, tissue or towel to wipe it off.

2.  The inside of the DVD case can be transformed into a coloring book holder with a place for crayons or colored pencils and smaller pictures to color

3. You can also use fabric and other materials to create different games inside the DVD case. 

Another option is to make a mini felt board and felt pieces for the child to play with during the trip. You can use a thick piece of wood or cardboard and staple a piece of felt over the board that you pick. 

Before the trip pick out a couple of the child's favorite stories and find coloring pages of the characters and let the child color them. Cut them out (I laminated the ones below to make them more durable) and glue them onto pieces of felt. This will allow the children to read their stories and interact with the felt pieces. 

In recent posts I have talked about a quiet book. (the quiet book page that I made before is below) This is a perfect time to pull them out. This way the children have lots of activities and the pieces cannot get lost. There are many different options for a quiet book also from counting, to the alphabet, to dress up dolls, to transportation, etc. The possibilities are endless. As long as it is something your child likes you can make it into a quiet book page.