Tuesday, August 15, 2017

ENTERTAINING DISTRACTIONS FOR KIDS ON A LONG CAR RIDE

** A Geek Daddy received the featured products for free to review **
Family Road Trips

Are we there yet?!  The dreaded phrase by kids that can grate on any parents nerves like the sound of fingernails down a chalkboard during a long car ride.  We embarked on a very long road trip from Michigan to Florida and back and I wanted to do my best to keep my kids entertained so we could have a peaceful car ride.  Spending a total of four days in the car driving more than 8 hours per day was going to make that a challenge but thanks to these great items we brought along with us to amuse the kids the traveling was relatively enjoyable for everyone.

road trip with kids
MAGIC SKETCH from Boogie Board

Both of my kids spent a lot of time doodling and playing games on this digital art pad.  It's liquid crystal screen lets you write and draw with a stylus on a screen just like pen on paper.  When you're all done simply press a button and the screen erases.  The twins spent a lot of time creating some artistic masterpieces.  It comes with 4 styluses, 3 stamps, and a roller to provide kids with a variety of options in crafting their artwork.  The Magic Sketch has a 7 year battery life so users can feel comfortable resetting the screen over and over again for creative endeavors, learning and game playing.

family road trip

Magic Sketch has a see through screen that allows kids to easily trace things when they don't want to go free style.  60 stencils come along with it that include pictures to trace as well as educational tools such as math problems to solve and handwriting skills to practice.  I really appreciate that the Magic Sketch is both entertaining and educational promoting kids learning while having fun.  Speaking of fun, it also has stencils for activities such as hang man, mazes, tic tac toe, and word searches.  There were a lot of tic tac toe duels during the car ride!  



What was especially nice about Magic Sketch is that it doesn't need to be charged.  The kids could constantly play with it and it never needed to be plugged in to be re-energized.  The battery inside doesn't need to be recharged during its lifetime.  Plus Magic Sketch is water resistant and  durably made making it very kid-friendly!

road trip essentials


DISNEY MOVIES ANYWHERE

It really is convenient to be able to download a digital copies of a movies to a phone or tablet to entertain children during a long road trip.  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was just released on Digital HD as we were leaving and the kids were thrilled to watch it in the car.  My daughter hadn't seen it yet so she was really excited and absolutely LOVED Baby Groot.  We redeemed the motion picture from our Disney Movies Anywhere which allows us to stream or download for viewing films from Walt Disney Studios (Disneynature, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Pictures) over the web or its mobile app as well as connect its content to our iTunes, GooglePlay and Vudu accounts.  This flexibility is nice because depending on devices and locations sometimes one option may be more ideal than another.  For example we don't have an AppleTV so we stream our Disney Movies Anywhere content to our family's big screen television via Vudu.  Since we were traveling with iPads with no Internet connection while we drove, the kids watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 through downloading it through iTunes.

Disney Movies Anywhere


Q*bert

My son has been infatuated with Q*bert since he saw the movie PIXELS.  So I surprised him on the trip by giving him a mini-arcade version of the game from The Bridge Direct.  It featured an old-school arcade cabinet that was the perfect size to play in the car that featured music, sound effects and graphics from the original game.  They also have a Frogger version as well!

classic arcade games


The kids got a real kick out of using a joy stick to control the characters instead of key pads or finger motions like they use on most of today's apps and video games.  Plus they thought the "retro" graphics were really cool!  The miniature arcade games also have volume controls so if the noise became a bit too distracting while my wife and I were driving we could have them mute or turn down the sound.  These games captured their attention for a decent amount of time during the car ride and my kids really enjoyed them.  You can find these games along with Centipede at Walmart.

video games


Cricket Media

We made sure our kids got some reading in during the trip by bringing along some magazines from Cricket Media.  It can be challenging balancing screen time with reading when so many publications are moving to digital formats.  There are times I want my kids to just put the tech away and read so Cricket Media is very helpful for that.  They publish 11 print magazines for kids that range in content for audiences varying from babies to teens.  These magazines do a nice job of being entertaining for kids to peruse while also being full of informative material on topics such as art, literature, history, and science.

middle grade reading

The twins had issues of ASK and SPIDER magazines along with them on the trip.  These two magazines are aimed for children between 6 to 9 years old and are 100% ad-free filled with interesting articles and activities for kids in this age range.  ASK Magazine is meant for curious kids and is filled with fun facts and trivia about animals, geography, outer space as well as numerous other STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) related topics.   SPIDER Magazine is filled with content to encourage kids to get excited about reading on their own.  It is filled with fantasy and adventure stories, folk tales, poems,nonfiction works and illustrations by reputable children's artists and authors.  Both of these magazines were Parents' Choice Gold Award winners this year!  They provided some quiet down time away from movies and games during the ride and generated some nice family conversations with the kids asking questions and chatting about the content they'd read which was a nice way to spend some time as we traveled together.

MIGHTY JACK

Of course we brought some comic books along with us!  This trip my son and daughter spent a lot of time reading the graphic novels Mighty Jack and Mighty Jack and the Goblin King which were written and illustrated by Ben Hatke.  These stories are a reinvention of the classic fable Jack and the Beanstalk in a contemporary setting.

graphic novel

In Mighty Jack, the garden behind Jack's house has become filled with amazing creatures that have gone wild in his backyard after being set loose by magic beans that he and his little sister Maddy planted.  That graphic novel concludes with Maddy being taken by one of the creatures to a place located at the top of a gigantic beanstalk inhabited by giants that grind the bones of human children to feed a beast within their castle in the sky.  Mighty Jack and the Goblin King starts off with Jack and his neighbor Lilly in fast pursuit up the beanstalk.

My son was so immersed in these stories he couldn't put them down when we stopped to eat and brought them into the restaurants with him to continue reading.  He also loves to draw and really relished Hatke's illustrations.  During the trip he doodled images of many of the characters from these comics on his Magic Sketch.  My daughter also really enjoyed reading these stories when she could pry them away from her brother.

graphic novel

All in all it was a safe journey that was made a lot more peaceful than some of our past road trips thanks to making sure the kids had plenty of distractions to keep them entertained during the car ride.  In fact, I rarely was asked "are we there yet?" which made the drive really nice for me. So I give all the items listed above A Geek Daddy nod of approval!  Are there any must have items that you always take with you when traveling with kids to keep them amused during the trip?

32 comments:

  1. The longest road trip we have ever done was 8 hours (Boston to DC) and I packed SO much stuff to keep my boys busy. Where's Waldo and I Spy books worked really well with my two.

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  2. These sound like some ways to keep your kids entertained on a long trip, I like the idea of having games to play.

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  3. Road trips with kids can be a disaster. Our dvd players went out right as we were planning a long trip from Florida to Indiana. We made the best of it with things similar to what you got.

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  4. QBert? OMG I have heard that in ages. I used to love that game. Our tablets and phones are travel must haves and we preload them with plenty of stuff before hitting the road and ALWAYS have portable chargers just in case.

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  5. I remember when a book, paper and markers and playing I spy games was all we had for a road trip. So many ways to entertain the kids today.

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  6. We just did a 2500+ road trip and we definitely pulled out all the stops! Mighty Jack isn't a series I'm familiar with, I'm going to have to check it out!

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  7. I love the old time games! My kids usually watch movies or play games with each other in the car. I try to get them into I Spy too!

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  8. These look like great things to entertain kids. My daughter sketched a lot when we were driving. My son just likes to look out the window.

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  9. My son has always been a great road tripper...he would love those games though

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  10. For long road trips, a few good distractions come in handy. That Magic Doodle sounds like a lot of fun for kids.

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  11. Four days on the road is a long time, I love Road trips but not sure I would survive entertaining the kids let alone myself lol but lovely products the kids had to keep them company

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    1. We do a lot of road trips but not this long! You are a great Dad for keeping your children occupied!

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  12. Kids have nothing to complain about with built in TV movies and all kinds of electronic games to play. Plus reading and coloring.

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  13. That sounds like one long drive! Goodness! I love the magic sketch. A classic as always!

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  14. AHHH! Frogger! How cool is that? I would love to give my kids a chance to play that game. These are great suggestions. Thank you.

    Mommy Moment

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  15. It is really important to keep kids entertained during road trips! I know I got bored on them when I was a kid too! These look like fun choices.

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  16. We live in a very rural area and it's a long drive just to the closest town with a grocery store. I'll definitely be utilizing some of these with my three kiddos!

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  17. A good set of entertainment surely is needed to distract kids especially on long road trips. I am really loving that mini-arcade you got there, totally reminds me of my childhood.

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  18. Magic sketch and qbert are you kidding me? Is it 1980? I want those games too.

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  19. your idea is cool and truly of help..

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  20. Were going away on a vacation tomorrow. Therell be a long car ride so these tips will be helpful!

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  21. I would love to be a kid these days - so many fun things to keep them occupied! I remember being in the car while my parents drove us from New Jersey to Disney World in Florida - they would usually leave late at night and we would sleep 8 hours and the parents would switch shifts and knock out maybe 10 hours before anyone even wanted breakfast. I'm not sure I would be able to do it!!

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  22. My 8yr old niece would love this. When we make (road) trips she usually spends her time playing games on her iPad. :)

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  23. I used to love travel games. My sister and I had Guess Who and a magic sketch. I also played 'brain games.'

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  24. I have survived that phase of "having to entertain young children during long road trips." I am glad that there are different ways available nowadays to keep them busy and entertained. I used to play QBert too. :)

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  25. That Magic Sketch looks like a lot of fun! I often pre-download movies to watch during a long flight. I too need a little distraction some times.

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  26. Great ideas! I am heading back to our old city this week with a couple of my kids so this is great to hopefully help entertain them! - Jeanine

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  27. My son has been asking for those cute little hand held games for awhile. I think I will get him one for Christmas.

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  28. Such great ideas! My niece has the Magic Sketch game. She would constantly play with it so it's definitely a good choice to keep kids entertained.

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  29. It looks like you had all kinds of amazing things to distract your kids on a roadtrip. I know that my daughter would love playing with those old school arcade games. So awesome.

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  30. Ahhh I wish I'd seen this a few weeks ago! Friends of mine just drove across Canada with their 4 kids, and this would have been perfect for them!

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  31. The longest car ride we've been was 8 hours and we did bring in a lot of games to keep the kids entertained. I can't imagine driving for days.

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