Big Box Play Product Review

Big Box Play sent us their castle set in exchange for a review.

Do you ever wish that you could spend thirty minutes doing a great activity with your kids, then get back to your own work, and they’d still be engaged?

Wouldn’t it be great to find a project that’s big enough to take your children’s attention for several hours? Maybe a couple of days? STEM projects are usually winners in the interest department, but it’s frustrating that we parents usually end up being the ones actually doing the project after the kids wander off.

How to Plan a Road Trip your Kids will Love: Tip 3

Children thrive on routine.  Traveling is no different.  Routine will calm frazzled nerves, and let you save your energy for the adventures! I knew we had really gotten comfortable with our traveling routine the night that we walked into our hotel room, and my three-year-old headed straight for the bathroom, undressed, and hopped in the tub.  Here are a few hints on how to establish a routine that leads to a road trip your kids will love. 

Pack by activity

Since  our children are too young to take responsibility for their things, my husband suggested this system. It works so well!

We have one overnight bag with all of our toiletries and pajamas.  We pack clothes by outfit in Ziploc storage bags, in the suitcases.  Each evening, when we pull over to sleep, we each choose one outfit for the next day and put it in the toiletry bag.  The overnight bag and electronics bag are the only ones that need to come in, unless we also grab the swim bag!  Giving the children control of what they wear and eat helps them feel more settled in the craziness of traveling. 

In the morning, dirty clothes go back in the clothing bag. The laundry bags stay in the vehicle unless we are washing the laundry.  Then it is taken to the laundry room, and everything repacked in the ziploc bags. Each child has their suitcase with just a jacket, stuffed animal, favorite book.  Well, occasionally other items mysteriously appear.  All electronics go in one bag, though.  That makes it easy to be sure everything is charged over night, out of the heat, and the site of thieves. We also have a bag just for car activities, a bag for food that I can reach, and often a second store of food and water in the back.  This system saves my husband and I stress, allowing everyone to have a better time. 

Rest Stop Routine

Whenever we pull over, every one is mandated to use the toilet.  Then, we spend a few minutes exploring or playing tag.  Either my husband or I quickly discard the trash and organizes snack, drinks, and activities so we will be comfortable on the next leg of our trip.

Organizing the Day

What works well depends both on how much ground you need to cover, and how old the children are.  We have found that our pre-schoolers do best when we wake them about fifteen minutes before pulling out and eat breakfast in the car.  They love those bagels!  If we have a long day of travel, we hold off on electronics until thirty minutes before our lunch stop.  On short days, we can splurge. We try to make lunch a long stop somewhere that the kids can really be active, like a park or restaurant with a play area.  After lunch, it's another hour with out electronics.  Usually they fall asleep.  When they wake up, snacks and electronics flow freely, until we pull in for the night.

Make it an Adventure, Make Car Time a Treat, and Establish Your Routine.  Those are my ideas for planning a great road trip.  What are you doing to make your next road trip special?

Related posts:
How to Plan a Road Trip your Kids will Love: Tip 1
How to Plan a Road Trip your Kids will Love: Tip 2

Pinterest boards
Traveling with Kids, organized by the Measured Mom
My personal Road Trip board

 The post,  Planning a Road Trip your Kids will Love: Establish Routine by Christy McGuire originally appeared on WisdomKnowledgeJoy@blogspot.com, now Thriving STEM.com.




Other Posts from Thriving STEM

How to Plan a Road Trip your Kids will Love: Tip 2

When it's time to hit the road, my kids are excited to strap themselves in.  It might be weird, but it has been a huge benefit as our family has needed to cover some serious miles over the past few years due to my husband's job.   Last week, I shared tip one, make road trips into an adventure. My second piece of road trip advice is this, Make car time a treat. Here is how we do it.

How to make Car Time a Treat

New books

I ordered a few new books for this summer's road trip. Over the past few years,  I have made a habit of buying a children's book about each state we visit. It has been a fun way to appreciate and remember where we have been.  The State Shape Books are great and have also enjoyed these state alphabet books .

New Car activities

Magnet board activities work well in the car.  At Christmas, a friend recommended doing a nativity from Made by Joel.  I colored and laminated it, and both kids really enjoyed it.

You can also plan simple crafts.  Last year we did this shamrock from Roots of Simplicity while traveling on St. Patrick's day.

I am working on prepping a few new activities for this summer's trip.  I will share as I finish.

Of course, extra screen time is a major reason for my children's love of road trips as well.  I Game Mom is the go to site for great Apps for kids, and we have our own stash of favorite videos.

Snacks

Although vacation is the time to splurge, too much extra sugar or red dye still makes us feel bad.  We carry reusable water bottles, and a stash of nuts, crackers, dried and fresh fruit.  My children look forward to these "car foods", and we make better meal choices along the way, because we can afford to eat earlier or to wait for a better choice.

If you are looking for more great car trip ideas check put this Pinterest board organized by Anna at The Measured Mom.  My personal road trip ideas are here.

If you are trying to plan a road trip that your kids will love, you will want to read yesterday's post explained how to make travel an adventure, and tomorrow's  about how you can establish routines that keep the stress out of travel, and the fun in.



The post How to Plan a Road Trip your Kids will Love:Tip 2originally appeared on WisdomKnowledgeJoy@blogspot.com now ThrivingSTEM.com

Pretend Elevators with Bottle Cap Pulleys

This activity can be used to address the following Next Generation Science Standards

K-2-ETS1-1.	Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
K-2-ETS1-2.	Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.
K-2-ETS1-3.	Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs.

Project Recycle! and Create! has provided me with some much needed motivation to do creative projects with my kids this year.  This month's challenge is to make an activity with or for our kids using bottle caps.

We made play animal elevators with operational pulleys.

 My children helped engineer their elevators and enjoyed using them for pretend play when we finished.  It was a fun introduction to a simple machine.

Materials: bottle caps, preferably of a few different sizes

A Box

String 

Glue

Clothes pins

Small play animals

I let my children choose where to place the initial bottle caps, then hot glued them in place.

I tied string to some clothes pins.  They attached the animals.  My daughter put her favorite little turtle in a car made from a candy box.

I originally envisioned a multiple point pulley system, but they were intrigued lifting their animals with just one.  

My son was frustrated that the string kept slipping off of the pulley.  We solved the problem by gluing a larger lid on the outside of the pulley.

This kind of physical play is great for developing an intuitive understanding of physical properties. We also worked in a little problem solving.  I would like to come back to this concept and add some complexity when they are ready.  For today,  they naturaly made it into pretend play, while I slipped off to get dinner.

Lids have provided us with a few other great solutions. Including:

A drain stop  done by the Pony Artist

A lesson in Circular Motion at the Breakfast Table initiated by T-Rex

Check out these projects from my co-hosts.

Sink or Float Experiment by AlterNative Learning

Memory Game by Powerful Mothering

Solar System Model by Still Playing School

Bottle Cap Art by P is for Preschooler

Flower Card by There's Just One Mommy

Pattern Play by Teach Me Mommy

Or do you have a great bottle cap/lid project?  Link it up!

An InLinkz Link-up

What to do with a box: Nature Museum

  We were living on an island up in Washington a couple years ago, when my sister gave my son a copy of  Animal Habitats by Judy Press.  This book information and some crafts to go with each of the common North American habitats.  I consider myself craft challenged, so this was a great gift, especially since she sent quite a few of the materials with it.    We worked with water habitats right away, and as we moved around the country have made a collages featuring our local habitats in each new home.

Focusing my Pre-school Physicists

One morning I found my kids filling containers with water and slinging them onto the patio.  When I asked why, they said, "We're doing experiments."  After we insisting on our morning routine, I asked some questions to focus our activities.  "What kind of experiments?"  Answer, "Water."  "What do you want to know about water?"  Answer, " Does it get bigger or smaller?"  Me, "Bigger or smaller when what?" 

Easy Weather Science Demonstration You can do While Making Dinner!

Science lessons don't have to be complicated or take extra resources. Here's a quick physics lesson that you can do while you are boiling pasta, rice, or potatoes for dinner.  My children loved this chance to learn about how the weather is formed.