Road Trip Conversation Cards

With summertime in full swing, I’m sure that many of you have road trips planned.  Whether you’re just headed a couple of hours down the road or driving cross-country, kiddos can quickly get restless in the back seat, right?  Right.  Well, I know mine can, anyway.  Especially Elliott.  Man, that kid just won’t sleep in a car and with a 12-hour drive to Colorado coming up pretty quickly, I’m trying to be prepared for her restlessness.  We’re renting a van, you see, and 7 of us will be in need of kid-friendly entertainment.

My super-clever friend Valerie mentioned yesterday that she was buying a set of commercially available topic cards for and upcoming occasion in her life.  I started pricing them and decided to make some myself instead.  I’m sure the boxed sets are great, but we’ve got so many upcoming trips that I’m trying to pinch pennies, stay green and keep our travel budget under control.

So here’s the deal.  I grabbed a bunch of empty boxes from the recycle bin.

The kids and I busted them apart at the seams and cut them into sections.

I cut one at roughly 4″ x 1/5″.  This isn’t an exact science and in my book, who cares if they’re perfect?  It’s all about quick, fun and easy!

Then instead of using my ruler that you see above that I’ve had since 3rd grade (Yes, really.  It was a consolation prize from my small hometown’s Mayfest and has stuck around all these years.), I just roughly used one as a template and cut around them until I had 40 approximately-the-same-size cards.

After that, I dug around on the internet and in my brain for some questions to use.  I typed them up, printed them out and cut them into strips using some old scrapbook zig-zaggy scissors.

Then I borrowed a glue stick from the kiddos and pasted the paper onto the cards.

Voila!  Nothing fancy, but they should definitely help us while away the hours on the road.  But wait!  What’s that image flashing before my eyes??  Oh yes….conversation cards in the floorboards, wedged between seats and smudged with Cheeto fingerprints??  Ack!

Much better.  A drawstring bag to fit in Mommy’s purse. (See bag tutorial here.)

I hope that if you make these cards, they bring you hours of peace in the car and bring you and your kids a little closer.  You never know what’s going on in those brilliant little minds until you ask them a bunch of random questions. 😉