Traveling with 11 year old

[sthnbell19]

Hello All!

My family is planning on driving to Disney World from Alabama. My younger sister is eleven years old. I would like to fix her up a bag to keep her occupied in the car on the way. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

 

[2Pirates_1Princess]

We plan on taking the kids gameboys and a portable DVD player. We live in Illinois and will be driving about 16 hours over 2 days to get to disney. If you go to the Disney Family area there is a thread there that has printable games. I plan to look into those also. My oldest is 10 and he enjoys word search books and things like that too. Hope that helps some.

 

[sthnbell19]

Thank you. I will check those out. We are planning on making it a two day drive because my dad has several health problems and can't ride or drive for eight to twelve straight hours (depending on which route we take and the traffic in Atlanta). I usually sleep most of the way but she needs something to occupy her mind, time, and energy.

 

[dsnymomof4]

If you have a portable DVD player, a new DVD for her to watch would be great. I also have printed out Disney coloring pages and for our last trip I printed out a list of all 50 states and my DDs looked for license plates and would check off when they found one from that state. That kept them busy and interested for a while (at least while it was light out). They also usually bring their gameboys. I like to make them "goody bags" with some snacks, crafts and some pins to trade when they get there. It's so nice of you to think of doing this for your sister. I hope you all have a wonderful trip!

 

[summerlandjeff]

Try this, it worked great for our DD12 (she was 8 at the time).

DW bought coloring books, crayons, color pens, books, Disney gifts, snacks, clothing etc. and wrapped each one up. We told our DD that each hour of the trip (from NJ) she got to open a gift. We made sure there were gifts for each hour of the trip, and this kept her infinitely occupied. Not only did she stay occupied with the gift, she looked forward to the trip instead of the "are we there yet" bit.

We also made sure the gifts were not just "something" but related to the trip;
new bathing suit, pressed penny pouch, disney stickers for mousekepping envelopes (a big hit) , etc....

enjoy!

 

[nettii]

we travel by car alot- so when I know we have a long trip coming I start putting togther goodie bags. They are usually small celo bags with a small tinket snack maybe a drink tied with a ribbion. I do a bunch and give them out every hour or so-just lil stuff for fun-clip on fuzzy animals, pencil and note pad, small beading kit, a new game, busy snacks cheese and crackers, shelled nuts. Its all about keeping them busy!
I just had a great idea(hope you think so!) What if you bought some cheap flip flops and a bunch of fabric-you can cut it ito strips for her or let her-maybe a big flower and glue and let her make her own flip flops for the trip!Also wall mart has tons of bags she could also decorate a beach bag to match! Look in their craft section I bet youll find a ton of stuff to keep her busy for days!

 

[Over the Rainbow]

When we went a couple of years ago the girls where 12 and 10, we took our laptop for them to watch dvds and audio books on cd from the lib. The audio books ended up been the best of the two. They never wanted to stop the story for a break.

 

[loriandmatt]

my DS just turned 12 and on our road trips he has kept occupied by:

gameboy
DVD player in car
older/smaller playstation 1 hooked into DVD player in car
i pod

those are the things that he would be OK letting his friends see him do. however, when he is just with us he can let his "cool guard" down a bit and enjoy some more kiddie type things like:

playing with his little sister
coloring
mad-libs books
those magic marker reveal tablets they sell at truck stops and rest area gift shops

we also play family car games like:

each time we pass into a new state we have to name a famous person from that state, the state capitol and something we like about that state.

the camper game: each person in the car keeps an eye out for other cars/trucks on the road hauling a camper. the first person to spot it calls out camper and gets a point. if you call too early and it ends up not being a camper, you get 2 points taken away. you get a bonus point if you spot a camper parked at someones home that is visable from the road. the first person to reach 20 gets to pick where they stop next and eat.

i am going to disney world and i am taking:
first person names something they are taking (either real or made up) that starts with the letter A, next person names the items the people before them are taking in order and adds on an item from the next letter. no points, just fun. again, not cool in the eyes of his friends, but he isn't within the eyes of his friends. he lets go a little bit. (but don't we all when we are at WDW?)

 

[joiev98]

We also made sure the gifts were not just "something" but related to the trip;
new bathing suit, pressed penny pouch, disney stickers for mousekepping envelopes (a big hit) , etc....

enjoy!

This may sound like a strange question but, what are mousekeeping envelopes?

 

[Trixie15]

Try this, it worked great for our DD12 (she was 8 at the time).

DW bought coloring books, crayons, color pens, books, Disney gifts, snacks, clothing etc. and wrapped each one up. We told our DD that each hour of the trip (from NJ) she got to open a gift. We made sure there were gifts for each hour of the trip, and this kept her infinitely occupied. Not only did she stay occupied with the gift, she looked forward to the trip instead of the "are we there yet" bit.

We also made sure the gifts were not just "something" but related to the trip;
new bathing suit, pressed penny pouch, disney stickers for mousekepping envelopes (a big hit) , etc....

enjoy!

This is an awesome idea! I love it!