Pack Your Bags – Kids’ Road Trip Essentials

Post by Michelle of Avery & Augustine

Summers are nothing if not one long road trip after another.  We’re starting to think about what we would pack Avery and Nate for some of our upcoming trips (or long meals with friends in restaurants or any time they have to be stuck in one place for awhile).  These adorable dog and unicorn backpacks will definitely fuel the excitement for any trip.  Here are some fun little games and activities to include in your kids’ road trip essentials packs:

• Tic-Tac-Toe — A beautiful and sturdy version of the classic game we know and love, perfect for sharpening those early strategy skills.  This version is wonderful to take along with you!
• Books — Always a great idea for the road.  Kids will read a good story over and over again.  They get repeated practice sounding out new words or learning to recall and retell the important parts of the story.  Some of our current faves include The Little Train by Lois Lenski, Spring is Here and My Friends by Taro Gomi.  Countablock, by the brilliant duo Christopher Franceschelli and Peskimo, is an extremely fun, colorful and tactile counting experience and is one to be flipped through many times over.  It’s a wonderful book for teaching rote counting and naming numbers.
• Spinny Speller — A toy that plays with sounds in words and helps promote phonemic awareness, an important skill for emerging readers.
• Wooden Pull-Back Car — Anything with wheels is popular with the younger set.
• Yarn—Finger crocheting and finger knitting are activities that occupy busy hands for a good long while, and they’re quiet tasks, too!  Older kids can use yarn to play string games like Cat’s Cradle.
• Sketch book, stickers and multi-ink pen — Blank books with hard covers seem to work best for drawing and doodling while out and about.  What I like about multi-ink pens is that they provide a lot of color options in one pen, so there’s no fumbling around to look for the color that you want in your backpack—they’re all contained in one pen, in your hand.
• My Road Trip Book A-Z — Take any little notebook and turn it into an alphabetic memoir of your trip.  Children can draw a picture of something they see out their window that begins with each letter of the alphabet.  You can make a book for each trip taken over the summer and start an archive!
• Sunglasses — an essential for any jaunt!

There are so many ideas for things and activities to bring on a road trip.  It’s good to have a variety of options, so kids can go back and forth between all of them.  Eventually, you find what works for your family.  Happy traveling this summer!

Thanks to The Land of Nod for sending the items this post.

You can see Michelle’s work and read about her two young children and their first forays in cooking, art and everything in between at Avery and Augustine.