Hitting the Road

This summer we have a couple of trips in the works. Both will take us out of state and both will require me to be in my vehicle for more than three hours straight with my boys. Both have the potential for making me go loony with the constant asking of "Are we there yet?"

Okay, all kidding aside, I do love to travel with my kids and take them to places we've not been, but sometimes it's hard traveling with kids - for us and them!

Enter Travel Kits: A Simple Way to Bless Others ($12.45) an e-book written by Donna Rees and published  by The Old Schoolhouse.

I have to admit to being slightly skeptical of this product when I first received it, but my skepticism quickly vanished upon reading it and I began to get excited at the potential of it all.

The basic premise behind this e-book is finding creative and even inexpensive ways to keep children (and adults!) entertained while traveling. It can be for long or short trips. It doesn't only have to focus on the children and, as encouraged in the book and the title, this doesn't just have to be for YOU! The author encourages the making of kits for friends and families you know who are traveling. What a blessing that would be!

As I mentioned, the boys & I will be doing a bit of traveling in the next few months. Our first trip will be to Boston just for the day. N9 is a train nut. Amtrak runs a train from Portland south to Boston daily. It takes about 2-1/2 hours to get there plus the additional two hours by car for us to get to the station. My MIL and I will be taking the boys down just for the day to enjoy Boston and visit with some relatives.

While I know the trip will be fun, I'm sure that the boredom will set in within an hour of us leaving the house and shortly after the train starts going. So I'm planning to put together travel kits for them! I'm having so much fun doing this. I'm slowly gathering items. Here is what I have gathered so far for each of them.

For B13

So far I've purchased (with a gift certificate we had kicking around) Eldest and an activity book plus from the local dollar store I added sunglasses and glow sticks. Our local big box store had the "How to Train Your Dragon" gummies for a mere fifty cents so those went in there too.

For N9

He also has glow sticks and gummies plus a couple of small activity books (one on trains - of course! - and one on race cars - another love). I also have a small set of "How to Train Your Dragon" cards and stickers plus a neat scratch/glitter set and sunglasses from the dollar store.

For J6

Very similar to his brothers with glow sticks, sunglasses, trading card/stickers, and activity book. Plus he has chocolates rather than gummies.

I made a long list of other items I will be gathering to use. My point with these in particular is to be sure whatever I have the boys open on the train is light enough for them to carry around all day or edible. We will be walking around Boston so I am trying to pack light.

Later in September we will be heading back to Massachusetts to tour Plimoth Plantation during their homeschool days as well as checking out a nearby Renaissance Faire. Since I'll be driving the whole way plus we'll be camping (Well, staying in a rented cabin at a campground. I do not camp!) I plan to do bulkier things and more special treats for that trip.

What I liked:

The potential behind these kits is enormous and only held back by your imagination and creativity. The e-book has 90+ pages and even includes recommended reading lists by ages at the end. If you'd like to see an eight page sample of this e-book, please click HERE.

Be sure to head over to the TOS Homeschool Crew blog to read what other Crew members had to say about this e-book. (Scroll to the end of the post and click the "click here" button to see all the links.)



*Disclaimer: I was not paid for this review. All opinions shared are my own. TOS Crew Members are given the product free of charge in exchange for our unbiased opinion of the product.