Easy And Cheap DIY Car Trip Activities For Kids

In the previous post of the series, I’ve covered quick and healthy road trip snacks for kids and adults. By now, you should know how to mentally prepare yourself for a road trip with kids. How to pack the car ahead of time. Also, how to convert a storage bin from a diaper box to store the kids’ toys, coloring books, books, and snacks.

• Tomorrow’s post will be all about the best fun road trip toys and activities for happy kids! I will cover everything I had brought on our long road trip. I will also share which toys and activities were a hit and which weren’t.

Now I will share some easy and cheap DIY car trip activities for kids!

Since I’ve gotten the basic entertainment down and I will cover these in tomorrow’s post, I needed some creative activities for the kids to do in the car that doesn’t cost much. They are so easy to make and you should already have the items around the house needed to make these three car trip activities for kids.

The first DIY car trip activity for kids is I-SPY sensory bottles.

(Can you find a turtle’s webbed foot? What about a white bead?)

What you would need for this project:

• Empty plastic bottles
• Tiny toys/items
• Rice
• Duct tape or super glue

We drank and emptied these plastic bottles. This one is obvious but I feel that I have to mention this first.

When the bottles were washed and dried, I searched the house for tiny toys/items to put in the bottles.

I made sure to put the items that would catch both kids’ attention. I tried to have more of Coral’s favorites in one and Ocean’s favorites in another so they wouldn’t whine about wanting each other’s bottles.

Some tiny item ideas: plastic straw pieces (I don’t throw my plastic straws out and use them for crafts), lego pieces, beads, Shopkins, tiny animals, and party favors)

Once both bottles had enough of the tiny items, I filled both bottles up with rice.

I placed the caps back on and used duct tape to tape around the caps.

I could’ve used super glue, but Coral likes to play with those tiny items. So, after the road trip, I would be able to open the bottles up and let Coral have the tiny items back.

During the road trip, I would ask both kids to find something specific like a pink dog and both kids (mostly Coral) would search for it. Ocean loved to shake the bottle and sees what pops up through the rice.

The second DIY car trip activity for kids is a beaded cardboard loom.

What you would need for this project:

• A rectangle cardboard piece
• Sharp scissor
• Yarn
• Beads

I also had an idea to make a permanent cardboard loom with beads on the yarn. So, the kids could play with the beads.

Firstly, I cut a cardboard piece to be a rectangle shape. I used a cardboard box laying around for this. The cardboard piece measured about 12 inches long and 8 inches wide.

Mark lines across the top and the bottom sides of the cardboard piece. Cut the lines to create notches.

Cut pieces of yarn. I had 5 notches on each side, so I cut 5 pieces of yarn.

String the beads through each yarn. I did a different amount of beads on each yarn with the middle one full of beads.

Carefully put the end of a piece of yarn through a notch and do the same with another end of a piece of yarn. Once all the yarn ends are on the back. You could tie them all together or tie each yarn individually.

(Which one do you think Ocean gravitates to? If you say the one with black and white beads, you’re right!)

The third DIY car trip activity for kids is a cookie sheet lap tray.

What you would need for this project:

• A cookie sheet
• Primer
• Paint (I used this but you can do any paint)
• Sandpaper
• Paintbrush

I had a couple of old cookie sheets that I wasn’t using. If you don’t have any old ones, you could grab some at the dollar store or whenever for cheap!

My cookie sheets fit across the car seats perfectly, so I thought I’d give them a paint to make them pretty.

I painted the cookie sheets with primer first.

Once the primer was completely dry, Coral and I painted with acrylic paint on the cookie sheets. Leave them out to dry.

As you can see from the picture above that the paint chipped off!

If I do this again, I’d sand the cookie sheets well then paint them with primer. So, please use a sandpaper on your cookie sheet first.

The kids used the cookie sheet lap trays for their magnets, coloring books, building Duplos, snacks, and to hold their iPads.

The kids loved these easy and cheap DIY activities!

Which of these car trip activities for kids would you do for your next road trip?

Road trip with kids series:

• How to Best Prepare For A Road Trip With Kids
• How To Conquer Packing For A Road Trip With Kids
• DIY Convert Diaper Box To Storage Bin For Traveling In Car With Kids
• Quick And Healthy Road Trip Snacks For Kids And Adults
• Easy And Cheap DIY Car Trip Activities For Kids
• The Best Fun Road Trip Toys And Activities For Happy Kids
• Family Road Trip Checklist To Make Your Trip Enjoyable