While I have written about traveling with kids and taking baby on vacation, I know that most families travel at least a short distance during the holidays and it’s important this time of year. Keeping babies, toddlers, and children occupied during that time can be difficult. Here a few Montessori-inspired travel games for kids that might keep your kids busy during this holiday season.
Traveling with Kids – DIY Shape Sorting
A fairly easy DIY game to make for travel is a homemade shape sorter. There are three main ways that you can transport it:
Put stencil and cut-out shapes in a bag
You can use the stencil itself as the shape-sorting mechanism. All you have to do is throw all of the shapes and the stencil in the bag.
Use an old fruit container
It takes a little more work, but you can trace your shapes with a stencil and cut them out. Then, use the same stencil and an exacto knife to cut them into the top of an old plastic produce container.
Draw each stencil shape with the same color on a piece of cardboard.
This one, the kids would just match each shape rather than drop it through a hole. It’s still fun and effective!
Upcycled Altoids Magnetic Games
Especially for the Montessori families or any family that homeschools, you can use the time in the car as extra learning time. In this case, I utilized an old Altoids container to make a magnetic transportation unit game. Each of the magnets is a different form a transportation. 3 are ground transportation and three are air transportation. (I also have two more than I can sub in if lost or to add more to the game)
The game has two parts: 1) Categorizing each form of transportation as being in the sky or on the ground. 2) Turn over the road and find each of the words that correspond to the pictures to match them.
Don’t forget to make traveling with kids fun and not a hassle! It takes just a few minutes to make some fun games they have never seen before to keep them occupied while in the car or on a long plane ride.
For more on travel sensory activities and easily portable games, click here.
Kara is an author and advocate for positive, grace-filled parenting. She is homeschooler to her 5 children living on a farm in New England. She believes in creative educational approaches to help kids dive deeper into a rich learning experience and has her degree in Secondary Education & Adolescent Childhood Development. She is passionate about connecting with and helping other parents on their journey to raise awesome kids!
[…] how it works, here. This also shows you how to do it step by step, using a paper plate. Pretty […]