I want to start off giving props to Brandy at gluesticksblog.com for this incredible idea! I was searching for something educational, fun, and could serve as a keepsake for the boys. I copied her idea via Pinterest almost completely, but wanted to share the idea with my friends as well! Well done, Brandy! Thank you for putting this together.
Our family has done a fair amount of traveling so the time in the car isn’t daunting as I hear it can be for some parents. THREE weeks though is a stretch even for us though. And from experience, it’s hard to remember anything from the first part of a trip once you get home. These notebooks took a fair amount of time investment to put together, but I am very pleased with the result! In all reality, I know the kids might lose interest after a week or so, but I’m hoping it will keep them occupied and especially present in what could be mundane traveling. All of the printables are free and I’ll give you the links to print them off yourself!
On the front is the highlighted journey straight from our Roadtrippers itinerary. (I had to take a screenshot, fyi.) The bottom notebook is mine, that has our detailed itinerary, extra fun pages, ANSWERS to the kids’ math pages, and AirBnb receipts, just in case.
I got a paper map (they still exist!) and a paper atlas that the kids can thumb through, peruse and follow our journey also. Then the first few pages are popular car games. I love that we’ll have these in front of our faces so it’s easier to keep track! The boys are avid “slugbug” players, so this shall be fun! And Brandy had a great idea with using post-it tags to mark the Bingo and other game sheets. That way we can reuse them!
This questionnaire I found I thought would be a fun conversation starter with not only us and the kids, but maybe to quiz Philip and I on how well we know each other. The “Tickets” page is a plastic sheet cover that they can use to hold the tickets they get. They can turn these in for money for souvenirs at gift shops or treats at gas stations. We haven’t decided yet on how much the tickets are worth… maybe $.50? Maybe $1? They can get tickets for exceptional behavior or catching the “Word of the Day” (see our packets).
Then we have a page to keep trail maps, brochures, or other flat keepsakes…
For each day I made a packet. The first page has a general itinerary for the day, stops we’re making, things to look for (homeless person in Pasadena, Starbucks in San Francisco? I had fun with these.) And the Word of the Day. And remember the projects we did all year to prepare? I took a picture of those and added them to the days that we would be visiting those places. Connections, baby!
The second page of the packet is a journaling page I found. One of my goals in raising kids is that they learn to be mindful. Journaling is a great way to do this and having quick prompts for them to get started makes it even easier.
I found a whole host of math worksheets for free online (link below the post), and I’m hoping we can keep up our math skills with these.
The last page in our daily packet is something fun. This happens to be a word search. I also included mazes, color by numbers (my kids love those!), and the like.
One by one, the preparations are getting done. We are just 4 days from departure!
Links to Printables:
These turned out awesome! Thanks for the shout out, too! I’m glad I stumbled across your site. It’s lovely!
So glad you found it! Thanks for the great idea!
This looks awesome! So creative and entertaining, just the type of thing I like to put together for my daughter. Thanks for including the link to my journaling pages over on We3Travel. Safe journeys!
Thank you, Tamara!