The Best Car Activity -- EVER!

I'm still on a vacation high, so I am still thinking and writing about our vacation.  I'll get back to things around here soon, but I want to tell you about the best car activity that we have ever done ... really!  I know that I wrote about Travelling With Kids before, but this, to date unnamed, activity is the best one yet!

It was inspired by something I read in an old "Family Fun" magazine.  So after some thought and some additions and some tweaking, this is what I came up with -- insert impressive and fun sounding name here.

First I ran a piece of masking tape down the centre of the van all the way from front to back -- next time I think that I will use electrician's tape to make it look more like a road.

Then I taped place names and landmarks that we would pass beside the "road", starting with home and ending with the cottage.  Ideally, the distances would be more to scale, but I didn't have time to figure that out and in the end it didn't really matter.

We happened to have a car magnet (the magazine suggested using a dinky car, but I think that it would have been too heavy) and I glued a piece of velcro to the back so that it would stick to the ceiling of the van.  Every time we got to a place marked on our road, they (and later, when they couldn't reach, I) would move the car one step closer to our destination.

 I've always thought that I would like to give the boys a map to follow on our trips, so I printed one off for each of them and worked it into our new activity.  I highlighted our route on the map and tried to keep our "road" markers to places that were on their maps so that they could easily follow along.  In order to get our whole route on one page, I had to settle for less detail than I would have like, but they got the general idea.

 I then taped each map to the inside cover of a notebook and asked them to draw something for every marker that we reached.  It could be something that they saw, or something that they already knew about that place -- whatever they wanted.  And, yes, I am still finding stray markers in the van!

 Isaac's drawing of the Glooscap statue in Truro.

 Aidan's drawing as we were going by the airport.

Owen's drawing of ... well, he was a little bit less enthusiastic about this part of the activity, so I'm not sure where this is.

The best part was, not once did I hear "Are we almost there?".  Not once!  Ahhhh ...

Home Again

 On our way to NB for our vacation -- everybody looks excited!

On our way home from vacation.

We're still in post-vacation mode around here.  I hope to be back to normal tomorrow with lots to tell you!  Happy July!

Traveling With Kids

photo from Beef Jerky Blog

We have just returned home from a trip to my dad's house (a.k.a. Grampie).  I am always shocked by the number of people who are in awe that I would travel with 4 kids on my own -- Dada had to stay home.  Okay maybe it's not awe, astonishment (as in:  "are you crazy?!") is probably a more accurate term.  But the truth is, that I don't think anything of it.  So, I've decided to share what we take on our trips (not that I am any kind of expert) to ensure smooth sailing ... I mean, driving.

First of all, let me tell you that we do not have a DVD player in our van. For starters, my kids are prone to car sickness and I'm not sure that watching a screen wouldn't aggravate that -- wouldn't it be similar to reading a book? -- I cannot say for sure, but am not willing to try.  Anyway, we have found plenty of other things to keep us busy.

Let's start with the essentials -- the things that we absolutely don't leave home without.

1 -- Gravol.  As I already said, my kids are prone to car sickness, so no explanation necessary, right?

2 -- "Just in Case" Bag.  Just in case anybody gets sick, wet, dirty or hurt, I have a full change of clothes for everybody along with some towels, wipes, plastic bags for putting anything messy, band aids, and a bottle of water -- just good sense in my experience.

3 -- Snacks.

Everybody has their own lunch box and water bottle (notice the nice labels!).  I fill the boxes with whatever I have and sometimes a treat or two.  This trip we had homemade granola bars and an assortment of crackers.  On another trip, I strung Cheerios on a piece of yarn and made a necklace for each of them -- very popular.  Whatever it contains, it has to be easy to clean up because, inevitably, some ends up on the floor and in their seats.

4 -- Music and Stories.  We always have various musical and story selections with us, but here are a couple that always seem to make the cut.

The Proclaimers song "I'm Gonna Be" (or "I would walk 500 miles", as the boys call it) is very popular and it brings back fun memories for me.  The boys don't care about the rest of the CD, but we have to listen to "500 miles" at least twice, turned up loud, during any trip.  After that we can move on to something else.



Giants!  A Colossal Collection of Tales and Tunes contains 4 giant stories that are capable of holding the boys attention for over an hour -- now that's good story telling! 




5 -- Good places to stop.  Although we could make the 3.5 hour trip without stopping, and have done so before, I always find that a little break along the way makes things better.  We have compiled a list of parks and playgrounds along the way -- even the NS tourist bureau is great -- that are fun places to stop.  We added a new park to our list this trip, thanks to cousin Jen.  Cold or inclement weather is a little harder, but not impossible.  Last year we discovered an indoor sandbox -- a great find!  When in doubt, look for a school.  There is usually a playground, or at the very least, a field nearby.

Other things that we have tried in the past that have been successful include: car bingo (although this does require some prep work), the alphabet game (finding the letters of the alphabet on signs, licence plates, etc.),  20 questions (Owen always picks skyscraper!), and magnetic drawing boards.  I also want to try giving the boys a map so they can learn to read and follow our route -- maybe even laminate it so that they can draw on it or mark their favourite stopping stops, and use it again and again.  Next trip! Or what about lacing cards, or puppets, or, or, or ...

What has worked in your vehicule?

Grampie's House

We have just returned from a visit to Grampie's house in New Brunswick (hence the lack of posts lately).  Grampie's house is one of the kids' favourite places to visit.  Someday I plan to write about travelling with 4 kids (I've had many people look at me like I'm crazy to even attempt such a thing by myself).  But when we're going to Grampie's house, the 4 hour drive is worth it!

Here are some of the best things about Grampie's house

Pancakes almost every morning.

You would think that we never had pancakes at our house -- we do occasionally, honest!  But, every morning the answer to the question "what would you like for breakfast?" is "Pancakes!".  And every morning Grampie says: "that's a great idea!", like he hasn't had pancakes for breakfast for the last 3 days in a row.

A tractor for everybody.

Having grown up on a farm, one of Grampie's favourite sayings is:  "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."  And being the good country boy that he is, he still has a tractor or two.  The boys love to play in this shed, because there is a tractor for each of them!  What will he do when Laurel gets old enough to want to play too?  I guess that he'll have to have a bigger shed!

Star Wars toys.

These old Star Wars toys belonged to my older brother and the boys were overjoyed when they found them.  The toys are in pretty good shape and are probably collector's items by now.  Wow, does that ever make me feel old!  I'm pretty sure that it is not the "vintage-ness" of them that appeals to the boys.

Riding around the yard in style.

What's the only thing better than playing on the tractors?  Getting to ride around in one of Grampie's many motorized vehicles.  They would ride around like this all afternoon if given the choice.  Even Laurel got a ride in the trailer (although she is not in this picture) and loved it.  She happily waved to me as she rode by.  I guess that she is one of the gang now.

Getting to drive.

Yes, that is my 8 year old, driving and loving it!  Don't know why his eyes are closed though.

"Home again, home again, jiggity, jog!" as Grampie would say.  Thanks for a great time!  We love you!