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While trying to limit my three year old daughter’s ability to drive us crazy on a road trip, I accidentally made a really fun toy. To prepare for our trip, I made her a bunch of fun activities to keep her busy in the car. But, I worried she would want to try a new one every 30 seconds. To limit that, I used this road trip hack for kids and made her “buy” each new activity. I made laminated cards to use as specific currency that she got every so often.
Whenever she wanted to, my daughter could trade one of her cards to get something. I made her cards for activities, audio books, snacks, dessert, and a special prize. I will get more into how I used them later, but my daughter decided that collecting them and using them was a fun game in itself.
How to Make Activity Currency as a Road Trip Hack for Kids
Materials:
Making the Cards:
The cards were very easy to make. The hardest part was deciding what I wanted them for. I ended up making ones for audio books, activities, snacks, dessert, and a special prize. Since I wasn’t confident that I had thought of everything, I also made plain blue and green ones. I figured I could make them mean anything if I thought of something in the middle of the trip. I ended up not using them this time.
Once I decided what I wanted my cards to be for, I took pictures of each thing. Then I printed them out as 2.5 in by 3.5 in cards. I cut them out and rounded the corners.
Next, I laminated the cards. You can skip this step, but the lamination helped my daughter’s cards not get destroyed during the trip. You can also use packing tape to help protect them. But, there are so many fun laminator crafts I would recommend just getting one. Then, I cut the cards out again, leaving a small amount of lamination around the edge.
Using the Cards:
To keep the cards together, I put them in an old wallet I had sitting around. At the start of the trip, I gave my daughter a couple audio book and activity cards. While we were driving, I explained to her that she could use them to buy a book to listen to or an activity to do. Approximately every 30 minutes I gave her another card and explained what it did if it was something new.
At first she spent them fairly quickly. Then, she decided the cards were so cool that she started hording them instead. By the time we headed home, she had almost every card. I was able to convince her to spend more of them on the way home so she could get lots of fun things to play with. While I gave my daughter cards every so often, you can instead have your child earn them like Mama Cheaps does with her adventure bucks.
Outcome of My Activity Cards Road Trip Hack for Kids:
These reward cards worked so much better than I imagined. Not only did my daughter not ask for something new every couple minutes, she enjoyed playing with the cards themselves. She thought being able to buy things was so exciting. Several times when I looked in the backseat she was just sitting there looking at her cards. At one point my almost two year old niece rode in our car and she also was immediately drawn to these cards. So, if you are going on a road trip, I would highly recommend making these for your children. What is your kid’s favorite car activity?
Make sure to check out all the entertainment we brought on our road trip that my daughter had to buy.
Emily, this is the coolest idea.
Thanks, I was really happy with how well it worked