Any ideas for things to occupy the child’s mind on a long road trip?
The thing my little girl liked to play with when she was younger was a drum from Leap Frog that reads the ABCs and numbers each time you whack it. Looks like this:
Need some fresh ideas now though.
Good subject.
On the long drive to and from Chiayi to see the inlaws, our girl likes to read books or draw. I give her a clipboard with a pad of paper clipped on it and a packet of those colored pencils that you rotate the base of to make the colored portion come out. Lately (she’s a little past 3 now) she is crazy about drawing, doing it all the time at home, including when she’s eating dinner, so that’s a good one for us.
She also likes singing songs: itsy bitsy spider, liang jher laohu, mary had a little lamb, etc. Of course you or the wife will need to accompany/lead her in the songs.
She also loves doing puzzles (jigsaw, or triangles rectangles etc that you need to arrange to fit into a box), but those aren’t good for the car because the pieces fall on the floor.
But I’ve been wondering the same thing as you. Ideally it would be something that would entertain her for a long time, not make obnoxious noises like that thing you showed, not include small parts that will fall on the floor. With those criteria in mind, I bought a rubik cube for her but I knew it was way too advanced – and it is – so it doesn’t entertain her for long. Still looking for something new.
mp3 player loaded with James Brown, Al Green, Marvin Gaye and some Art Blakey.
Oooo…you mean for the child…
In car DVD is the best thing ever invented to keep kids quiet on long (or short) roadtrips.
The way to go is 7" headrest monitors, most ideal an all-in-one system which would have built-in DVD, or even a 6/10 disk DVD changer under the seat. Audio can either be piped through the car radio or the kids can wear IR headphones, so you can continue to listen to your fav radio station or music CD un-interrupted… ahh bliss…
Magnets - get a cookie tray and a bunch of Hello Kitty/other 7-11 magnets, or make magnetic pics from family photos and magazine photos. Or use a magnetic whiteboard, draw lines to make 9 squares and buy whiteboard magnets, 3 of each color to sort and line up.
Etcha-Sketch - from teh toy store, about 50nt, where the kids draw and then they can erase the picture by pulling the lever across.
Food - make up very small bags or boxes of treats and hand them over one bag at a time. Make a hole in a container so say one cheerio can be shaken out at a time (like those dog toys…)
Tie some toys on short strings or shoelaces so they can be thrown and pulled up from beside the carseat.
Get a nonbreakable mirror so the child can play with it.
Nothing. He never breaks the restraints.
I’ve used the Etch-a-sketch and a load of books as well as this puzzle thing:
Trouble with most of them is that she constantly wants to be showing me what she is doing with them. I can’t help but agree with the DVD suggestion but I don’t think I’ll be throwing down that kind of cash for the few trips that are made.
Road kill. Play a game trying to spot road kill. Dead bunnies, dears, raccoons, dogs, cats, etc.
Unlike most babies, my daughter does not like the car. She used to scream bloody murder, but ever since she’s facing forward, she only complains most of the time. I’m constanly buying new toys for her to play with, but she’s only interested for 15 minutes max. Any suggestions?
Oh, she’s 13 months old.
yeah, they seem to not like going backwards much~
for ours, only 1 1/2, we bring her favourite teddy…she loves that teddy to bits and will play with it for quite a while~ then we turn to mobile phones, and she also loves opening/closing the window…
When we talk about car toys:
What happened to the air refresher helicopter things used to be very common in Taiwan a couple of years ago? You could sit in any taxi or car and they had usually 3 to 10 helis with turning rotors, windmills or other stuff.
I liked them and still have one in any of my cars…
Now you hardly see any and the car shops don’t have them anymore. What happend? Factory burned down? Government policy change?