Skip to main content

I {heart} Road Trips


This weekend we're taking off on another road trip. As time-saving as flying is (unless you have delays), I have to say that road trips are my favorite.

Sure, there's the cramped leg space at times and sometimes whiny kiddos in the backseat and too much fast food. But there's also the freedom to stop whenever you need to stretch your legs, great sights to see out the windows, and the space to bring your cooler. All great reasons to take road trips, in my book!

I have been busy getting my car in shape for the trip. Some of the essentials that I have stashed in the car are:
  • sunglasses
  • umbrella
  • phone charger
  • gps (this is my hubby's essential item)
  • dvds & cds
  • sanitizer
  • wet wipes
  • extra napkins in the glove box
  • extra straws
  • extra plastic ware
  • sunscreen
  • bug spray
  • first aid kit
  • notepad & pen
I've recently added some fun road trip games to the car, too.

First of all is my all-time fave game to play while traveling by car~the license plate game! On every vacation and major road trip that my family has ever taken, we always played this game. Of course, growing up we didn't have a fancy~shmancy magnetic game, we just made our list on a notepad:) I saw this a while back at Target though and thought it would be fun to have. In case you're not sure how this game is played, you just look for as many different state license plates as you can. The goal, of course, is all 50, but that's tough! I can remember the closest we ever came was 49. We had even found Alaska and Hawaii, but I think it was Rhode Island that eluded us. This isn't a competitive game, simply a fun group effort.


Next is the classic game of Bingo {with a road trip theme} in magnetic form. The kiddos got this for Christmas, but I've been saving it for a good trip. They love to play Bingo, so this should be a hit.

These aren't games, but flash cards (occasionally) will be fun~always trying to sneak in something educational, aren't I? The math cards are for The Princess and the First Words cards for Mr. B. These are all from The Dollar Tree, don't you love dollar stores?!


And last of all is a fun set of Brain Quest cards I picked up at the book store not long ago on sale. I've also been saving these for this trip. These are fun trivia questions all about America. What better subject to study on a good USA road trip, I ask you!?!



What are some of your *essentials* for a road trip? I'd love to hear about them~leave me a comment!
Labels:

Comments

Sherry Drennan said…
Did you find the license plate game recently at target? I'd love to find one!
April 22, 2010 at 9:28 AM
Michelle M. said…
I'd love to know how to find that game, too! My kids aren't old enough yet, but I love it :)
April 22, 2010 at 10:15 AM
Lora @ my blessed life said…
I actually bought the license plate game a couple of years ago at Target. But I haven't looked this year, they may have them again. When I bought this one, they had a whole series of magnetic car games. I found them on an end cap in the cards/stationery section. I'll try to keep an eye out the next time I'm in there.
April 22, 2010 at 10:19 AM
Lora @ my blessed life said…
FYI: I did see some license plate games on Amazon.
April 22, 2010 at 10:23 AM
Lindsay said…
ha ha thats awesome list! I always have a Canadian Trivia game that we've always played, even as a kid!
April 22, 2010 at 11:20 AM
Kari said…
Glad I'm gonna be in your car. =) Otherwise, it'd be me, my iPod, and a pillow snoozing away! haha
April 22, 2010 at 2:29 PM
Kayren said…
We used a notebook too when we moved from Illinois to Virginia in 2006. We actually found them all, plus Canada and a foreign country or two. The kids loved doing that.
April 27, 2010 at 4:37 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reading Game: A Review

I was excited to receive this review product recently, thinking my 1st-grade-son could really benefit and enjoy it a lot. And I was right! He is having so much fun with this game. The Reading Game is a fast-paced memory card game using words. The game comes with 6 sets of memory cards with 6 corresponding readers. The idea is for you and your student to play memory with each set of cards (playing 6 rounds with each set), after every 2 rounds your student then reads 2 test sentences to see how he is retaining the new words he is learning. After the whole set has been played, he is then ready to read the corresponding reader...and has learned 30 new words! By the time your student has played every set of cards and read every reader, he will have learned 180 words. Of the 25 most common English words, 23 are on that list; of the 50 most common words, 42 are on that list. So this little game of reading really does prepare your student well. The readers are illustrated with cute
Post a Comment
Read more

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat
23 comments
Read more

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while.  It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it.  However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it.  Plus it's a little bulky.   When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it!  It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make.   I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course.  They  have these little wooden door hangers for .79.  I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each.  I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing.   I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had).  Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will clip on the right direction.   The left
17 comments
Read more