In preparation for our trip, I once again researched and prepared a basket of things for Cooper for the car ride. I figured I'd do a separate post so I can look back on these activities since most of them were a success! And they will also be good ones to use throughout the day at home or when I'm try to cook dinner without him emptying all the kitchen cabinets.
Just a note-- A lot of these are ideas I found on Pinterest or have seen on instagram. I tried to link the sources if I could find them, but many things are ones I've seen in the past and remembered when I was going through my supplies. Some of my favorite sites for ideas are: Busy Toddler, Baby Devotions, and Mostly Montessori.
*Q-tip push- I save a lot of egg cartons thinking they might come in handy for something and this was just the thing. I cut the holes in the bottom and then I went ahead and put a q-tip in each hole for Cooper to pull out and then had a container with extra q-tips to refill it. I know on our last trip he was more interested in taking things out than putting in, he is just now starting to do a little more putting in so I didn't expect much of that. This was one of the first activities I gave him on our drive and it was a big hit! He did take them all out and then I told him to put it in and he tried and was successful with a few, but had mostly thrown all of them by then. We refilled it a few times throughout the trip and by the last day he put q-tips back in 6 of the 12 spots! He was so proud of himself when he did it!
*Foil wrapped toys-- I had seen this idea and thought it would be fun. I decided to wrap his shapes from his shape sorter in foil and then he could unwrap them on the way and we'd have the shape sorter to play with at the condo. He didn't really understand what to do and mainly just threw the shapes out of the bucket at first. Then I showed him how to do it again and he was able to unwrap a few blocks. Once again, he was so proud every time he found a "block" under the foil. I rewrapped them at our condo for the drive home.
*Dollar store baking sheet and magnetic letters. I put on a few letters and kept the rest in a container in my bag. He played with this for a little while, but mostly just wanted to take the letters off the board and not put them back on so it didn't last long.
*Velcro board-- I made another velcro board since it had been such a success for our drive to Taos, but the velcro I used this time was not good and it came off most of the toys, so we didn't really use this. I did give it to him with the velcro pictures from the activity below for him to unvelcro. He still mainly takes them off the board and doesn't really try to put them back on.
*Animal and Food matching. I bought a PDF with some activities from a blogger I follow. It had lots of matching and sorting activities which are really too advanced for Cooper right now, but I thought it was a fun introduction to it and we can definitely use it all again later. So I laminated the pages and velcrod the pieces on. Cooper enjoyed taking them off and we put them on the velcro board. Now that we're home I'll start working with him on matching them when we can sit down together. But he loves animals and fruits so he liked talking about the pictures as he took it all apart!
* Wipes Container with Fabric. This activity we recycled from Taos and it was a big hit again. He loved emptying the container and he even tried to put a few pieces back in! I just cut up a bunch of different size and textured fabric scraps that I had and stuffed the wipes container full.
* Sensory bottles. I filled one bottle with buttons and then water and then one with water, glitter glue, and glitter. They both are fun to look at and catch his eye.
*Noise makers. Cooper loves shakers, so I threw a few in (the pill bottles are what I used-- I recycled those by filling them with rice and he can shake them) along with a few bells to shake.
*The $2 phone from the thrift store has definitely paid for itself many times over. We hid it away for the past month and a half so it was like it was brand new again and entertained Cooper for a lot of the ride.
*I threw in a deck of cards for him to empty if we needed it, but we didn't.
*Spice bottle and pipe cleaners. We also didn't get to this activity of putting pipe cleaners in the holes of an empty spice bottle, but I've got it tucked away for an afternoon when we need some extra stimulation!
And of course lots of books! I picked up a few board books from the Target Dollar Spot and hid them away for the trip-- animals and colors with lots of pictures. We brought his Water Wow book and he colored on it some, but not much.
His photo book is still one of his most prized possessions and this was the third edition. I buy the cheap photo book from Walmart (less than $1) and print 4x6 pictures of family and favorite things. I made him a new one for this trip and it had pictures of family members, pictures of some of his friends, and then pictures of a few toys. I did groups of toys (like several animals in one picture or several books in one picture) and he liked naming them all. This seriously kept him occupied for the first half of the first day and he loved going back to it every time we got in the car.
*Oball with ribbons. This one I added at the last minute so it didn't make the picture. But I'd found an idea for taking scarves out of an Oball. We didn't have scarves, so I filled his ball with different lengths of ribbon and left the tails out. This is another one I gave him on the way to the beach so then we had his ball to play with all week and then I refilled it before we headed home. He played with this at least 3 different times and seemed to really enjoy it every time.
His basket all ready to go. Every time we put him in his car seat, he'd reach over to pick which toys he wanted to play with.
And even though they're hard to see, here's a few action pictures.
Looking at his photo book
Q tip push
All of these helped keep Cooper occupied during the trip, but he also really liked having music on. Usually when we're in the car I listen to podcasts and on our trip we usually find an audiobook to listen to together as well as some podcasts. But this trip there were several times where we had to turn on some music to cheer Cooper up. We didn't have any of our kid CDs with us, but we used a lot of Amazon Music and Spotify on our phones. Some of our favorites to listen to are Seeds Family Worship, Party like a Preschooler, Laurie Berkner Band, Daniel Tiger, and a compilation of singalong songs for kids-- all found on Amazon. Now when we get in the car at home he immediately asks for music, so we're striking a balance between what he wants and what I want ;)
Whew that was a long post, but I wanted to share the details for the activities that Cooper enjoyed along the way. Overall, he did great in the car and we didn't even pull out a lot of the things until the last day, but they definitely helped on that day when he was over it!
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