Long weekends, leaf peeping, away games, and the holidays are coming our way. How many DVD’s can your kids really watch on that 4+ hour drive to Nana’s house? I just survived a looooooong road trip to South Bend (yes, the Irish won and the weather was perfect) with the help of these great boredom busting activities that I picked up at G. Williker’s Toy Store on Broadway. My kids loved the auto bingo (reusable, they slide the red clear plastic over various sights like cows, trucks, traffic lights, you get the idea), Time Flies (all sorts of word games, tic-tac-toe, and hangman – best part is it comes with 2 dry erase pens so you can erase and do it again on the way home!) To improve fine motor skills the cool Wikki Stix (comes in a rainbow of colors and can be molded into stick people, letters or flowers or whatever your budding artist dreams up). I had a lot of fun with ALEX bracelet maker (makes a single friendship bracelet — think Girl Scout Camp) – this one was a bit too advanced for my 6 yr. old. Best part – they were all $15.00 and under!
I remember the auto bingo cards from my childhood. I loved them. I could not find them anywhere now that I have kids so I made mine. I took a 6×6 inch piece of poster board, drew lines to create boxes and drew pictures in the boxes. Each card was a theme, different kind of autos, animals or license plates. I have even made them for when we go hiking, putting pictures of trees, nuts, berries, flowers, etc. cut out of magazines or the internet if you can’t draw well.