Serenity You: 5 Backseat Kids' Craft Ideas for Long Car Journeys {Guest Post}

[Making a scrapbook: one of the five crafty ideas listed in this article. Photo by tobucil & klabs.]

Cries of “are we there yet?” will be a thing of the past if you can keep your children amused during long car journeys. Here are five craft ideas to help keep kids (and adults) amused during those challenging road trips.

1. Olympic Hoopla Game

This one is topical, and the good thing is that when you reach your destination, you can actually play the game!

You will need:

· 3 small empty drinks bottles with the labels taken off

· 5 large paper plates, with the centre cut out, so you are just left with the rims. Keep the inner circles for the next activity.

· Strips of gold wrapping paper, silver foil and bronze or yellow coloured paper

· Felt tip pens

· Scissors

· Glue

Colour the paper rings with felt tips, each one in the colours of the Olympic rings. Stick the strips of gold paper on one bottle to cover it. Repeat with the silver foil and the bronze bottle. When you arrive at your destination, fill the bottles with water.

To play the game: set up the bottles and play hoopla, tossing the cardboard rings over them.

You get one point for bronze, two for silver and three for gold.

2. Olympic Medals

You will need:

· The inner circles of the paper plates used for the Hoopla game (maybe cut a bit smaller)

· Strips of ribbon

· Scissors

· Felt tips or colouring pencils

Colour the circles and write 1st Prize, 2nd Prize and 3rd Prize on each of the medals (or Best Dad/Mum/sister etc…) Cut a hole at the top and thread through the ribbon.

3. Cup Cake Toppers

You will need:

· Straws (cut in half)

· Thin white cardboard sheet

· Bits of leftover felt or material, scraps of wool

· Buttons

· Scissors

Draw your favourite animals on the cardboard, colour them in and cut them out. You can cut out ears and stick them on. Then add buttons for eyes, bits of felt for a nose and mouth and wool for a tail. Stick to the straws or make two tiny cuts through the middle of the animal shapes and thread through some wool to tie them on. Stick them onto your cupcakes.

4. Holiday Snap Set

You will need:

· White cardboard, cut into 40 card-sized pieces

· Colouring pencils, crayons or felt tips.

Draw two sets of identical pictures, like buckets, spades, shells, sandcastles, pebbles, ice cream cones, tents, caravans, and other things you might do on your holiday.

Once they are finished, you can play the game.

5. Holiday Scrapbook or diary

This can be prepared on the way to your destination, filled in during your holiday and finished on the way home. This is fun to make and it can be taken to school for a ‘show and tell’ session.

You will need:

· A scrapbook or a large exercise book.

· Various items collected during the holiday, like postcards and photographs of the holiday, or cuttings from brochures or magazines

· Ticket stubs from places you’ve been to like funfairs, cinemas etc.

· Pictures of animals you’ve seen during your trip

· Sprinkles of sand from the beach, small shells

· Dried flowers or leaves

· Felt tips

· Old magazines

· Scissors

· Glue

Decorate the cover of your scrap book then stick in photographs, ticket stubs, and all the items collected during the holiday.