Road Trip Treasure Chest

Today we transformed a diaper box into a Road Trip Treasure Chest by covering it with pages from a worn out picture book.  Inside, we stowed interesting items, bundled in groups of four similar items, which will make their appearance during our next long road trip.  For a long trip (more than 3 hours), every 100 miles we get out a bundle of items.  Each time it's a different child's turn to pick first from that bundle, but each child gets an item from each bundle.  (Unless that child has seriously misbehaved during the previous 100 miles.  In that case, no item from that bundle.)

This provides frequent changes in activities, something interesting to look forward to, and regular opportunities for logical consequences to reinforce helpful behavior.

What do we have in our treasure chest?  I gather items all the time, from stores, garage sales, thrift shops, bookshelves and toy bins at home--anywhere!

• small chalk boards with chalk and eraser
• magnetic Israelites and Philistines with an old cookie sheet to play on
• Magna Doodles
• Etch-a-sketch
• activity books of various kinds
• View Masters with lots of disks
• Playdough
• Colorforms
• I Spy books
• small handheld non-electronic games, like those little mazes with a metal ball to roll around or the ones you fill up with water and press a button to shoot a jet of air
• Mad Libs

When we are not traveling, these items stay in a couple of large plastic bins in the garage.  When we get ready to go on a trip, I pull them out and organize them and choose what to take along.  Instant entertainment!

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