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Amanda Tallent

How to Make a DIY Travel Binder (Free Printables)

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A family road trip is tons of fun, but also a lot of work. Small, tight spaces and a change in routine mean that your little ones can be less than cooperative. However, there are a number of ways to make time in the car enjoyable, making countless memories along the way.

Putting together a travel binder is one way to give each kid a customized activity to do in the backseat. Here are some other road tip tips to help you along the ride!

Prepare ahead of time

The thought of a family road trip may bring to mind constant bathroom breaks and “are we there yet”s, back seat squabbles, and arguments over music and movies. Fortunately, there are some things you can do ahead of time to plan for a better experience.

Set expectations

Talk to your kids ahead of time about your trip’s logistics: how long you’ll be traveling, where you’ll be staying, what the weather will be like, and so on. This will help set expectations for your travels and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Stay positive

Bring a positive attitude from packing up to buckling up. Your family can sense when things are tense, so do your best to roll with whatever missteps come your way. Instead, try to look at the journey as part of the destination. This can change your perception of family travel to a hugely enjoyable part of your adventure and it should only get easier as kids grow older. After all, being together is the idea of a road trip, and while your destination is the most exciting part, it is the togetherness that makes vacations so fun.

Plan for breaks

Try to leave enough time in your road trip to enjoy sites along the way and not be pressured into long stretches in the car. When traveling with young children, scope out playgrounds or places to run around and stretch your legs. In addition, there are many roadside attractions and places to visit along with any travel plan that will give your trip an element of excitement.

As with any trip, a combination of preparation and flexibility is key. Check along your route to find fun restaurants or interesting destinations, but if you aren’t feeling it at the moment, or if something is unexpectedly closed, allow for that eventuality and roll with the punches.

Here’s a tip: Have something fun to do for the ride home. Often, on the way there, time flies by, while the way back can seem arduous. Consider saving something like a day at an amusement park or a trip to the movies, for the return journey, allowing for some anticipation for going home. 

Bring along activities

To break up boredom in the car, you’ve probably planned to bring electronics, movies, games, snacks, and activities. These are all great but they do seem to have a short lifecycle when it comes to keeping kiddos entertained. Plan to switch out the variety to keep things new and fresh.

Switch out entertainment

While electronics and iPads can be lifesavers, there are plenty of other ways to occupy your little ones. One idea is to only use an iPad if you are driving after dark. Most other activities require some light to accomplish and once it is dark, settling down to a movie can be a great way to wind kids down.

There are tons of activities you can bring along with you, but buying them from the store or online can end up being needlessly expensive. Most of the activities you need are simple and can be easily printed and put into a fun travel binder.

Create travel binders

The thing about the travel binder is that it can be personalized to the little traveler in mind, so you can add games or coloring pages to fit your child’s interests. Just get a three-ring binder and some DIY road trip activities to create your own activity book. Pack some art supplies and you’re all set!

The Zebra recently put together a collection of travel-themed printables that you can use for children of many different ages. Just download, print, and add to your binder so you can hit the road. You likely have everything you need on hand and the binder can be kept in your child’s backpack or the back seat for the next trip. 

Another great thing about the travel binder is that it’s relatively clean so your car can stay nice and neat too (for the most part). Putting everything into one binder makes a big difference and keeps kids from taking each others materials too.

One of the best parts about a travel binder is that they create a tangible memory of your time on the road. Trip after trip, your child can look back on previous pages and you can keep adding new activities to keep them new and exciting.

Printables for preschoolers

Cutting out puzzle pieces beforehand can create a great binder game – or the classic game of spotting different colored cars can be made into something fun with a printable to really keep score of red cars vs blue ones. 

Printables for K-2nd graders

At this point, kids can be very curious about what is happening along the way — give them the ability to do things like learn road rules or fill out a scavenger hunt. Make the hunt more fun with small rewards like jellybeans, marshmallows or pennies for spotting items. There’s always the classic game of trying to find license plates from many states too.  

Printables for 3rd-5th graders

Journaling about your trip is a great way to engage young learners. Have them write a silly story about something they wish would happen, or about the weirdest road trip in the world. Have them keep the official logbook and ask them to record things like the time you started and stopped the weather and strange incidents along the way. Have them write a new song and then everyone can sing it, maybe even give them a tune and a topic. 

Make memories on the road

Again, bringing kids along on your road trip doesn’t have to be stressful. With a little preparation and imagination, you can easily discover printables online to enhance your trip and keep young minds occupied while you travel. Consider giving your children some ownership over what activities might interest them too. Work with them to customize their binder before heading out and build anticipation for your trip.

The Zebra has collected many more printables for you to use, but you can also find them all over the internet with a little research. Get ready to hit the road and make unforgettable memories with your family!

10 Building-Themed Activities to Teach Kids About Engineering and Construction

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Getting your kids to turn away from the iPad and play with hands-on activities can sometimes be a challenge. After a long week, it’s often just not possible to have ready-made projects that will excite your kids at your fingertips. However, you can stock up on relatively inexpensive and simple ways to engage with your kids on specific topics. If you have access to a printer and some household items, you can create some educational activities and experiments right in your own home!

Spending quality time with your kids can also help you build meaningful connections and introduce STEAM ideas to young learners. While hands-on play is fun, it’s also a great way to work with your kids on practical projects that will help them think and learn about the world. One great way to do that is to set them on tasks that involve building and construction.

Construction-themed play can be even easier with the help of some printables to accompany your projects. Check out these printable building activities for kids from BigRentz to create your own afternoon of construction games and projects. 

Benefits of construction-themed play

Educational: Construction activities are excellent for coordination as well as learning concepts in math, geometry, physics, engineering, and creative play. 

Easy to assemble: There are many building activities that can suit any age group and are inexpensive. Plus, these activities are usually simple to create out of things that you may already have in your home.

Building confidence: In addition, many kids just love the concept of construction and the idea of making something out of composite parts. This gives them a sense of accomplishment and pride in something they’ve built.

Creativity: Giving them the space and tools to build their own world allows children to gain creative depth, deepening their imagination and ability for high-level narrative thinking.

Problem Solving: The lesson of trying and failing and trying again is one that every child can learn. Building allows your children to learn how the world works and what patterns are created in construction.

Tools are cool: The idea of how tools function can be fascinating for children. Let’s face it, gravity and magnetism are pretty amazing when you just learn about them. Even simple machines like levers and pulleys, particularly how these demonstrate cause and effect, can keep kids occupied for hours. Many kids also love to learn about more complex tools and construction machines like excavators and cranes too. Teaching concepts like hydraulic power might seem out of the reach of small children, but there are simple lessons that can show them how things work that will excite their curiosity.

Projects for preschoolers: 

Even very young children can be excited about the foundations of construction. Their natural curiosity and desire to constantly learn will give them the ability to connect to a well thought out lesson.

Making shapes with marshmallows

Marshmallow anything is a great motivation for most kids. They’re fun, squishy and can be eaten afterward so they make for a great building material. For this simple activity, you can make shapes with just marshmallows and toothpicks.

With this project kids can learn: 

  • An introduction to shapes and angles such as squares and cubes, rectangles and pyramids. 
  • How to build larger structures from smaller ones. 
  • How things stack (or don’t stack)

Start with a template or drawing and have your child try to match the shape on the page. This helps them learn spatial relations. Use colored toothpicks to have them create patterns or even learn mathematical concepts like addition and subtraction — like when you subtract marshmallows by eating them.

Fun with Scissors! 

Teachers emphasize cutting in classes because it helps with motor skills as well as is a fun way to see how you can create something new. All you need is a pair of scissors and a ground plan to make cutting into construction. The printable has easy lines to follow and construction cones to avoid to challenge your little one to cut along a fun zigzag. With some tape, you might also create cutouts with paper that you can build into boats, planes, spaceships and more.

Building with nuts and bolts 

Make learning to count more fun with construction materials. Use nuts and bolts as number markers to teach children numbers, let them understand addition and subtraction, and give them an easy way to learn to count by twos.

Machine matching game

Is there anything better than playing pretend with your little ones? Take a list of construction equipment and what they do, then act out the actions of digging, hauling, or scooping. Have your kids memorize what each vehicle does and perform the matching action. This is silly and fun but teaches memorization in a unique way. 

Activities for Kindergarten – 2nd Grade 

Children at this age can start to understand a bit more about how to use tools to construct their own worlds. Give them the opportunity and materials necessary to let their creativity run wild. You can also begin to introduce some real-world examples of things like blueprints and step-by-step instructions.

A good neighbor

Talk to your kids about what elements make up a house and then have them draw the house of their dreams. Cut and glue those houses to cardboard pieces to make them stand up and then start construction on a neighborhood with cardboard streets and signs.

Hammering in syllables

As I’m sure you already recognize, kids love hammering. Get some use out of this tendency with a few legos or duplos and a toy hammer. Have your kids construct brick towers that match the number of syllables in a word (or letters in a word) then have them hammer that number of bricks together.

Match the tools

Build memory skills and demonstrate how each tool works to teach your kids about common household tools. During your next DIY repair, have your child assist you by getting the tool from your toolbox and show them how to use it in real life. 

Play ideas for 3rd – 5th Grade

At this stage you can get even more complex with your construction activities, bringing some more robust scientific ideas into play.

Lego building challenge

Legos are hugely popular for good reason, building complex interlocking brick models is really fun for kids. Make goals for your kids and have them build something they dream up (like their perfect house) or something specific from a template. This helps them problem solve and get proficient in understanding how to construct new things.

Dreamhouse

Kids love to imagine what their ideal house would have. Print out a simple schematic and have them design their future abode, complete with robots if they want.

Build a bridge

The classic spaghetti bridge project is one that can be really fun for you and your kids to connect with. With a design plan, you can learn about tensile strength and things like weight and force. Test the bridge you build with weighty objects to see how much it can take before it starts to crack.

Construction and engineering skills will always be important for future generations. Introduce some STEAM learning ideas to your kids at any age to see if they have an interest in or natural skill for building, designing or constructing. Give them a head start and help them develop a love of math, science, and creating new worlds through construction activities.