Mar
18

Car trip activities

by Sofia   -   in Good things for kids

We had the most amazing little ski trip last week. We hit the slopes on a few days and cross country skied on the other two. We also took the girls to ride shetland ponies ( they loved it) and they went to a spa with slides and such with their daddies while my friend and I sat on the sofa and sipped champagne ( we really needed it!). They also saw a reindeer they got to pat so Sven is off their bucket list now.  And the girls skinny dipped in snow from the sauna. I used to love doing it as a kid and it was so much fun hearing them scream with mixed  delight and “horror”. All in all it was a good trip with a lot of fun memories.

We drove there by car and even though it was only a 6 hour drive I thought some activities might be good to have on hand just in case they got bored. Right I was. Watching iPads or reading does not work too well in our family as the girls tend to get car sick easily. But little activities are fine for them. My friend spoke highly of audio books but I did not have any time to get them before our trip and the ones I found on iTunes were in English. So we packed some colouring books and sticker activity books instead.

Then we tried my friends fun travel game of spotting the moose warning signs ( yes we have those here). The one who spots it first gets a point. If you say it at the wrong sign you loose a point. Easy and fun until the sun starts to set and someone screams ” Moose” and my husband who is driving almost hits the brakes.

Another great activity is making sentences and stories so that each passenger adds a word on their turn. It would be even more fun if there was not a 4 year old ready to fall asleep and using ” potty words” all the time. She thought it was so funny. The rest of us not so much.

When she finally did fall asleep Cotton Candy started practising on braiding. And that is what I´m sharing with you today. I found the idea on Pinterest and it´s so simple yet brilliant. On the original picture I saw someone had attached 3 ribbons to the driver´s seat´s head rest and the passenger sitting behind it was braiding those. But as I only had really nice ribbon on hand ( read; I did not want to use so much of it for this) I just used masking tape to tape it onto something we already had in our activity basket. Easy as ABC…

I packed the whole lot in this box from H&M home ( we keep our crafty stuff in these as they fit our shelves perfectly and look so much more orderly). This is also easy to carry around and it´s a wipe clean material plus it fits perfectly between two carseats. I thought it was also handy to have a place were the girls could keep their toys in the cabin so they would not spread around.

It´s fun to see what different little girls like most to play with. Bubble Gum is very partial to her plush toys ( still, yay!) and on top of these two bunnies she brought along her favourite teddy bear. Other than that my girls chose to bring colouring and activity books, a lot of pencils and some games. Our friend´s daughter who is also four brought along a bag full of Barbies, princess toys and figurines. I used to love playing with Barbies as a kid but my girls, especially Cotton Candy are not that interested in them at the moment.

If you have a longer car or plane ride ahead I suggest you try the braiding thing ( obviously if your child does not know how to braid yet) and you can add more ribbon for more advanced styles too ( braiding with 4 or 6). Cotton Candy has now mastered a new skill!

Have a great weekend!

Lattemamma

p.s. Our girls also had their water bottles in the box during the drive so they could reach for those whenever they felt like it.