Do you have snacks? Pajamas? Blankies? Toothbrushes? Cash? Full tank of gas? Clean underwear? Time to hit the road for the holidays! Traveling can be stressful whether by car, train, or plane. Here are some favorite My Toy Garden tips to make travel time so much fun you might actully forget to turn on the DVD player in the car which I'm sure you only use on long trips anyway right? Enjoy and please pop over to our Facebook page with other great ideas that might help another fellow traveler!
1. Magnets are the best! We carry magnetic playsets that are perfect for travel. They feature a background scene for pirates, paper dolls, forest friends and more. The pieces stimulate the imagination for hours of on the go pretend play. My favorite is one with the tails of various cars and license plates to match for each one found along the way! Great geography lesson as well! Do you have magnetic pieces but not on the go board for them? Grab a pizza or cake pan and voila! Now you do!
2. Felt boards are another option much like magnetic boards that work great. We carry sets with rescue heros, horse back riding, Cinderella, a vet's office and other fun themes. Grab the handle and off you go!
3. Wrap small gifts and snacks to be unwrapped at various points of a long trip. Every 30 minutes or X number of miles, the child gets to open a little goodie that will entertain them for the next leg of the adventure. My Toy Garden has lots of goodies that will work great!
4. Map It! For an older child, print of a map showing point A to point B and let them highlight the trip as they pass by towns. Talk about fractions..we're 1/4 of the way there!
5. Create! Arts and Crafts are great for travel! Our Stephen Joseph art portfolios hold a pad of paper, crayons and pencils perfect for out and about art inspiration. Several other projects like the Thread It one pictured below would keep the brain busy and growing and free of a zombie induced TV coma. We also carry dot to dot books from 1 to 10 and ones for adults featuring up to 1400 dots in one puzzle! So addicting!
6. Write About It! On the way home capture the memories of the trip in a souvenior book. You'll love our 3 Bitty Books featuring a blank hard cover and blank pages ready to record the tales of this year's holidays. 3 books for $9.99 makes them a fun thank you to send to your host!
7. Beam Me Up! If traveling at night, bring along a small flashlight...key word there..small. :-) Kids love flashlights and they come in so handy when you need to pee in the middle of the night in a strange house!
8. Music soothes the savage beast is more than just an old saying. Just Sat. night, I calmed Nicholas down on the ride home from downtown by singing Christmas songs. "More sing Rudolph pweese!" Throw a CD in and put on your own car concert. We once also passed over an hour of a trip making up a song using words we read out the window. Hilarious! Our Tell Tale game would be great for that!
9. Emergency kit of post its, roll of tape, pipe cleaners, a deck of cards, a hunk of aluminum foil, a few books they've never seen, finger puppers and a pirate eye patch or other dress up items. When at your wit's end, before hitting the power button on the DVD player, hand your child one of the items and peace will soon follow.
What else do you do? Pop over to our My Toy Garden facebook page and help others! Click here for the My Toy Garden Facebook page.
No comments:
Post a Comment