35 Activities for car journeys with kids

Travelling with kids for a longer distance can be hard… Travelling with kids for 1 163 miles tends to be very hard. It takes about 24 hours to drive, which includes a few short stops along the way. And we are planning to set off on this journey from UK to Poland in just two days time!

My personal added challenge: to do it without DVD player (or other device that would play films).

I believe it’s do-able as long as I am prepared…and I spend the past few weeks reading through hundreds of blogs- looking for ideas and inspiration. The more blogs I looked through the more ideas I got, so today I want to share activities that I hope will suits my 2 and 4 year old boys during many hours of travel and maybe give ideas to other parents in similar situation or looking for quiet time activities at home or while eating out.

Looking back at my past experiences with long car journeys I know I need to be over- prepared! Almost all activities I chose can be reused later on -during quiet times, so it’s an investment and not a waste:). In my head I divided activities into three groups: some that will involve independent work or play, some that I or Daddy (depending who is driving at the time)would get involved in, and toys- some that we already have and they play with a lot and a few little new toys to explore and play with.

Here is my list so far:

One: Colour matching game using pipe cleaners. To make this I used an empty coco powder container- and made holes in the lid using a screw.

Two: Match the colour paper clips to corresponding colour lollypop stick. I used jumbo ice lolly sticks, magnetic adhesive tape and colour paper clips.

Three: Coins. Kids tend to like to play with coins, so I am planning to take a small box with two size holes at the top and lots of different size coins (I can’t advise on the best way of cutting the lid on this one- since I did it so badly, but it’s been secured with cello tape so there aren’t any sharp edges:) )

Four: Felt snake. I already had a “Felt snake” from our previous trip on a plane and it makes a good little activity.

Five: New books! As majority of children- mine love books. I found these two books by Emily Gravett- they have big clear pictures and little writing- so the boys can look at them independently and mostly follow the story.

Six: Photos! Photos on a key ring or in an album seem like a great idea. I printed a lot of their quite recent photos and then put their baby photo at the front- to give them more ideas to talk and think about.

Seven: Little highlighters and index cards.

Eight: Notebooks, stickers and crayons.

Nine: I made these simple counting cards with higher numbers for Jonah and lower for Noah. The idea is to pick the correct number sticker and stick it on the card. I laminated the cards so the boys can do this activity again another time.

There are lots of brilliant printable resources for children- available for free for a personal use and I am very grateful that they made my work so much easier. Here are some I picked that are good for car journeys:

Ten: Some “I spy” type of activities- I laminated mine so that I can reuse them and it’s always lots of fun for kids to use dry erase markers. They are available here.

Pegs. I like some of those activities that involve a child making a choice and pegging the correct answer.

Eleven: Shapes.

Twelve:  Alphabet cards.

Thirteen:  Counting kites.

Fourteen: Car friendly play mats. (to use with their new matchbox cars)

Fifteen: Car bingo.

New toys. I found a few inexpensive toys that would provide a lot of play time. Including:

Sixteen: Playmobil people. Seventeen: Number slider puzzle. Eighteen: A special matchbox car.

Nineteen: An aircraft.  Twenty: A calculator. Twenty One: A maze.

Twenty Two: A slinky.  Twenty Three: Finger puppets (the plan here is to tell a story together using the puppets).

Twenty Four: Glow in the dark stars.

Twenty Five: Glow in the dark sticks, just in case they wake up when we driving through the night.

We are going to bring some of our toys, I picked some of the favourites that take little space but provide a lot of possibilities of play.

Twenty Six: “10 in bed” book with 10 little soft toys. My boys came up with a game where one of them “reads” the book or sings the song while the other is snuggled up with 10 cuddly toys. As they count down from 10 they throw the toys across to each other so the “reader/singer” ends up with 10 toys at the end of the song. Then it’s time for the other one to read. They usually can do this for a looong time so I am hoping I can move this game into the car and have the same amount of fun.

Twenty Seven: Sqij Blox.

Twenty Eight: Sticklebricks.

Twenty Nine: A magnifying glass.

Thirty: Hex bugs

Thirty One: 10 question quiz. They will be asked 10 questions each that are appropriate for their age (such as: what keeps us dry when it rains?…)- they will get a sticker for each correct answer and can exchange their 10 stickers for one of the little new toys (that I will wrap to extend the activity).

Thirty Two: “I spy” for young kids- “who can be the first to spot a caravan/ a lorry/ a blue road sign…?”.

Thirty Three: Favourite stories on a CD. My boys love Julia Donaldson stories so I have ordered some to play in a car and they will be able to follow the stories in the books.

Thirty Four: MUSIC. We have plenty of their favourite songs, and some nursery rhymes- to sing along to. We are planning to take a few smaller instruments, like little rattles/shakers and harmonica.

Thirty Five: Playdough inside a balloon. I put as much play dough as I could fit inside a balloon and tied a knot at the end. The balloons I had happened to have a face printed on- otherwise I would draw a face with a marker pen. It’s a lot less messy then play dough in a car, but still mouldable and fun as you stretch the balloon to make funny faces. (sorry I’m still finishing this one so haven’t got any photos yet)

This is my list of 35 activities I prepared so far…but there are still 2 days till we travel so I am sure the list will get longer…

If you have any ideas or good websites with travel activities, it would be great if you could share in the comment box below.

Thanks for reading!

Homemade ice lollies

I love smoothies for the fact that I can pack them full of fresh spinach and my two boys just drink it all like it’s the biggest treat. NOW- ice lollies are even better than a smoothie!!! So why not make them the most nutritious treats you can!

I have four ice lolly recipes I’d like to share with you. They make a great refreshing snack for both kids and adults and are quick and easy to make.

I try to use organic products where I can and in their raw unheated form- they don’t carry harmful chemicals and pesticides and have a lot higher nutritional content. However they tend to be significantly more expensive, so I’d encourage you to make your own choices on these- according to what your wallet says:) . I decided to only write “organic” on the foods that I really think should be consumed organic.

Kiwi and Avocado Ice Lollies

• 2 ripe kiwis, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 ripe avocado
• generous handful of organic spinach
• 1 Tbs of honey (or more to taste)
• 1 tsp of Maca powder (optional)

Process in a small food processor/ chopper until smooth. If using a blender add some filtered water and blend. Fill your ice lolly moulds and freeze.

 

Raspberry Ice Lollies

• 1 cup of natural goat’s yoghurt or natural organic yoghurt
• 1 1/4 cup of fresh or frozen organic raspberries
• 1 Tbs of honey (or more to taste)
• 1 tsp of Maca powder (optional)

Process in a small food processor/ chopper until smooth. If using a blender add some coconut milk (or other milk of your preferance) and blend. Fill your ice lolly moulds and freeze.

Tropical Ice Lollies

• 1 handful of organic spinach leaves
• 1 handful of organic swiss chard leaves
• 1 Tbs raw organic coconut oil (it has a slight coconut flavour, which I like but use non raw if preferred)
• 1 tsp of Maca powder
• 1 tsp of Spirulina powder
• 2 rings/slices of fresh ripe pineapple
• 200ml -300ml of filtered water or coconut water
• (I use pineapple to make ice lolly sweeter- but always taste before freezing and add honey if necessary)

Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer into your ice lolly moulds and freeze.

The third recipe, was inspired by a number of chocolate drink recipes created by David “Avocado” Wolfe. A lot of his recipes can be found on you tube and I recommend to try them out!

Chocolate Ice Lollies

• 1 Tbs of raw organic cacao nibs
• 1 1/2 Tbs raw organic cacao (if using normal cocoa add 2 Tbs)
• 1 tsp Maca powder
• 1 Tbs raw organic coconut oil
• 1 Tbs shelled hemp seeds
• 1 tsp good quality vanilla essence
• 5 cashew nuts
• 1 Tbs of honey
• pinch of sea salt
• 200 ml of filtered water or cooled green tea

Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer into ice lolly moulds and freeze.

 

…back on track…

Health has been on my mind recently… At the beginning of 2015 I was hoping and planning to incorporate more nutrition to my family’s diet…

We do eat healthy and have been for many years. But every year we try to improve our health and nutrition. 5 years ago I’d say we were healthy- with cooking from scratch, occasional juicing- eating green veggies…but then -every year we learnt something about the food on our table and we made better choices.

So 2015 was going to bring the best change yet. Sprouting, juicing, making veggie smoothies, superfoods- that was the plan!

BUT life is unpredictable and doesn’t always keep with our plans. Without going into deep, sorry, unnecessary details…- my everyday normal life with my excited and big hopes for the nearest future has crashed. And literally from one day to another I found myself without friends and on the verge of loosing most of our income (ehhh..there is church life for you) followed by a phone call that my dad was taken to hospital and his condition was critical.

I took life that I had for granted. Life became such a puzzle – It was the kind of thing when you want to go to sleep and wake up in 2016, after the dust from the crash had settled. Instead you have children to take to school and care for and cook for…their lives don’t stop- they still teeth and cry and bump their heads so badly you need to rush to A&E…

Huh the beginning of 2015 was a hard ride, but through it all it was important to keep my inner peace intact.. and maintain some kind of balance and at the same time pick up the pieces and restructure our life.

And with gratitude and grace and love and forgiveness I am carrying on ready to begin 2015 as I initially planned…

Yay!

The last 5 weeks were very busy as I was trying to get into a routine with vegetable juicing, making healthy smoothies and sprouting. After just a few days of doing this I’ve been feeling energised, more awake and my memory has improved! Healthy life is busy and pricey so I am taking my time to figure out how to make the most with what I have. I am writing all this partially to explain my long absence and partially to warn about a few healthy ideas coming up (hopefully alongside non food ideas…) :)

Thanks for reading.

Crochet out of my comfort zone

When it comes to my usual crochet I like bright colours and tend to keep to circles and squares. But with my friend’s birthday I enjoyed doing something out of my “crochet comfort zone” and reached for calmer natural colours (which she prefers) and I used this pattern to make a heart shaped decoration. At least I intended to make a heart shape decoration, which turned out to NOT be a very defined “heart” I also managed to struggle along the way and improvised a lot and got quite stressed as my time was running out… But overall the colour and shape change was quite refreshing and since then I’ve been itching to use calmer colours again.

beauty

when life is black and white find beauty in simple things

allium schoenoprasum

“We have Easter in our house”

Children are so good at being happy and enjoying life to the fullest. Jonah (my 4 year old son) has been very excited about Easter. After his birthday, at the beginning of March, he asked if we could “make Easter in our house”…and we have done A LOT of Easter and Spring activities since then-

Easter buntings have been up for over two weeks now, and the boys already have enjoyed three Easter egg hunts -no sweets included so in theory you can have as many Easter egg hunts as you want (???). I filled a few plastic eggs with some stickers, Easter shaped erasers and a few little toys from their toy box- like bouncy balls and small animals that they haven’t play with for a while – and they loved it. I think it’s the searching for eggs that they love the most and of course the count down to the real Easter egg hunt- with chocolate!

They also enjoyed the real Easter story, which I focused on FORGIVENESS. Even though at Jonah’s nursery they talked a lot about Jesus dying on the cross, I don’t think he can quite understand that (or maybe I do not want him to understand what death is… just yet)- so I just focus on Easter being a reminder of Jesus going to Heaven and forgiving our sins. With two little boys in the house there are plenty of opportunities to exercise forgiveness! Noah (age 2) understands as much as he does, but I can see that Jonah really learnt something- and he is more likely to accept Noah’s apology with a smile:).

As I mentioned here before, for various reasons we don’t eat carbs- so Wednesday brought even more excitement when Daddy suggested making hot cross buns!

My children have definitely enjoyed Easter preparation and are super excited about the next four days, we planned a few outings, where they will be able to run around and enjoy nature. But today I realised that all that time, their excitement have been contagious, I have been feeling  down about things more recently and they definitely brought rays of sunshine to my days.

Hope your Easter preparation is busy and filled with lots of lovely things and may You find joy this Easter!

Easter egg decoration- part 2

Eggs are finished, branches found  and the living room is ready for Easter. Honestly, I expected this to be a “mummy do it” craft, but the boys loved every step of it! Especially arranging eggs on the branches :)

Easter egg decorations – part 1

Over a month ago I bough a pack of polystyrene eggs, (the same size as normal eggs) to make some Easter decorations. For days I was searching my head for ideas- pinterest and everywhere else for inspiration but couldn’t come up with anything that I really liked… And finally on Friday morning – a week before Easter- I got it. Keep it simple- use PVA and water mixture and pieces of tissue paper. Then I spent over an hour trying to locate polystyrene eggs, searching every craft box and every cupboard- they just VANISHED. How very annoying! Even more so that I already told my boys we could make an Easter egg craft together.

After a quick-ish trip to the craft store we came back with tiny polystyrene eggs-because that was all they had a week before Easter! Huh. Still. Nothing is a problem. At least we had something to decorate:)

This is what we did:

We picked the colours of tissue paper we wanted to use (light blue, yellow and bright green) and cut them into pieces.

  

(we hoped that some of the hearts would show through as a pattern- on finished eggs…and in places they are clear but next time I would use plain tissue paper)

In a jar I mixed some PVA glue with tap water in 1:1 ratio – stirring well to combine. Then we used cheap paint brushes to apply glue mixture onto polystyrene egg and covered with pieces of tissue paper.

Coating generously with glue mixture we covered each egg with two-three layers of tissue paper. Making sure the last layer was also covered in glue (the glue mixture turns clear when dry).

We finished of with a piece of ribbon and a pin.

So far we only have blue eggs, but hopefully in the next two days we will be able to add yellow and green eggs and decorate our house.

Just lovely spring…