Travel Activities

We've been trying to make our car trips without televisions. (I've never been crazy about using them, but with two infants/toddlers that were not great travelers, the TVs were worth our sanity and the safety of our family.) We've been doing pretty well using books, toys, and coloring books, but I was so excited when I saw these travel binders over at Somewhat Simple.

As excited as I was, I didn't jump at the chance to make them. Regular dry erase markers DO NOT come out of clothing (at least, I couldn't get them out) and my girls are notorious for drawing on their bodies and getting markers on their clothing by accident. However, this fall I noticed that Expo now has a line of washable dry erase markers (and they were on sale with school supplies!!), so it was time to give this a go. (I also bought some washable Crayola dry erase crayons, but have yet to test them on the binders. Crayons aren't great for travel with this hot weather!! Too many bad experiences with melted crayons in the car!)

Needless to say, Big Sis LOVES her notebook and will remain quite busy with it. Little Sis loses interest after a while, but she still thinks it is fun.

Cheapest time to make these is likely in the fall/back to school when you can buy all of the supplies on sale!

Supplies needed:
binder or scrapbook
sheet protectors
either printer/paper to print sheets from the web OR
purchase workbooks
dry erase markers (or possibly crayons)
OPTIONAL:
pencil holder with binder holes
coffee filters or tissues or something else to serve as an eraserFairly easy...simply print or tear out worksheets from a book, slide into the sheet protectors, add them to your binder and you are ready for travel! I plan to have each girl color a favorite character for the front of her binder.

Worksheet possibilities:
This activity is pretty easy to gear up or down to your child's age. Some possibilities: coloring pages, connect the dots, finish the picture pages, mad libs (buy a book or print some for free online) for older children, letter and number tracing for the pre-K/K crowd, color by number if you have enough markers, etc.Where I found my worksheets:
Workbooks from the Dollar Store/Target Dollar Aisle
Customizable handwriting worksheets
Preschool Worksheets
DLTK usually has a lot of printables to choose from, but I haven't printed from there yet...Other examples (besides Somewhat Simples):
Simple, Messy, Fun
Feels Like Home
Try This!