Screen Free Ways to entertain Kids on a Long Journey
Are you embarking on a long journey with your kids this summer? Our annual summer jaunt across the Irish Sea begins with a 5.5 hour journey to Holyhead, Liverpool then there’s a 2- 3 hour ferry ride across to Dublin and a 4 hour drive the other end – and so I’m always on the lookout for things to do to keep the kids entertained and reasonably quiet whilst travelling!
This year, I was particularly focused on finding things to keep a just turned one year old boy occupied in the car and on a very choppy ferry ride where he can’t really walk around!
At the moment, we have resisted going down the tablet route (check out how we’re doing with this next year- we may have muttered ‘if only we had a tablet’ more than once on our journey this year!!’)
So here’s what we packed for our children to keep them busy on journeys this summer and to avoid multiple rounds of eye-spy and moaning of ‘are we there yet?!’ (Although it did not avoid this unfortunately!)
Things to pack to keep kids entertained on a long journey:
In the 3 year old’s bag:
Colouring and pens
Letter worksheets and dot stickers (these are great for learning numbers and letters)
Flash pad (these were bought by their lovely Great-Aunt, they can play joint games with them too)
Play dough Mats with playdough (for the ferry) Check out lots of our favourite mats in this link.
We like this printable Travel Bingo here
In the 6 year old’s bag:
Scavenger Hunt Bingo
Dinosaur Card Game (Brainbox Bounce)
Doodle Book (this book is amazing, it really does teach you how to draw!)
Colouring and pens
Some books (Horrid Henry is his current fav!)
Lego Code Game. I’m not sure where I first saw this idea, so it isn’t my own. It’s a stroke of genius though – you use all those odd little bits of lego lying around and use them to create a code for your little ones to crack (with your handrawn key of course!) This was best played on the ferry due to the little bits.
Lego Challenge Cards – these are a super good idea from Lalymom.com
In the 8 year old’s bag:
Shopkins top trump card game
Several Books
Sticker Book
Colouring and Pens
And to keep the one year old busy I packed……
A fizzy drinks bottle full of straws – he loved pulling them out but couldn’t quite manage popping them back in!
A magnetic closed glasses case
A box with bits and bobs in
A set of play keys
And this year I found these Maths games super helpful to pep up the last few boring moments of a journey! Some of them even made my brain hurt! You’ll love these would you rather questions for kids for keeping kids occupied in the back of. car!
If you’d like some more boredom busting ideas to entertain the kiddos whilst travelling, check out my other post on our long journey to Ireland and these amazing road trip activities for kids here!
