Dollar Store Travel Games

There is nothing that can scare a mom quite like the thought of a 2 week, 9 state, 3,000+ miles road trip with 3 kids.  All that time in the car. All those snacks. All of the "are we there yets". What is a mom to do? Get the hot glue gun out of course.

I used games and a puzzle from the dollar store, some magnets, a magnetic dry erase board and a few other items to make 2 games and a puzzle that were worthy of being passed around in a car and brought a little bit of entertainment between several state lines.

It was easy! Here's how I did it ...

I bought a checkers game and snakes and ladders game at the dollar store along with a 48 piece puzzle. 

Using magnets that I already had (you can find them at Michaels) I hot glued round magnets to the bottom of all of the game pieces. I used a magnet roll (also available at Michaels) and put strips on the back of the game boards making sure not to cover the creases where the board folds for storage. I also used the magnet roll to cut small pieces to put on the backs of all of the puzzle pieces. I did try to keep the magnets as close to the middle as possible for the puzzle pieces. 

Fortunately for me I already had a magnetic dry erase board that was the perfect size. If you don't have one in the house you can pick one up at Wal-Mart or Target for around $6. 

If you've read my blog before you won't be surprised to know that I kept each game and its pieces in a ziploc bag. Talk about a space saver. 

Since I didn't want the dice for snakes and ladders rolling all over the place in the car I put them in a clear plastic bowl with a lid. I used a recycled bowl from a yogurt treat but you can use anything as long as it's clear on the top or bottom so you can see the dice. I also used two dice instead of one. Sometimes snakes and ladders can go on endlessly. With two dice it seems to go a little faster. I prefer to play 2 or 3 short games rather than 1 endless game.

Of course we had other forms of entertainment for the car as well as for our many destinations. I'm not a big "movie in the car" mom so that wasn't one of them. We did have lots of books including early reader books for our 6 year old. I'm happy to say that she reached a new milestone in her reading ability and began reading silently to herself. Hooray for summer reading! We also had packs of pipe cleaners that I picked up from the dollar store, stickers and paper, a new coloring book and box of crayons for each girl, fun pads, cheap cookie sheets for each girl to use as a writing tray (they're great because things can't roll off), a really neat travel memory game from Amazon and many other things. I didn't put it all out at one time but rather offered something new when needed. 

The games have definitely become a staple in the car for trips or anywhere we have to sit and wait. Since I feel guilty every time I hand over my smart phone for our 6 year old to play games on I'm thinking magnetic tic tac toe would be great also especially when we are at a basketball or soccer game or even a track meet.

If you're planning a road trip I hope this comes in handy. It definitely helped us pass the miles. Do you have a different travel game idea? Something that worked great for your family? If so please share with the rest of us in the comments section.

Blessings,

Bridgette

Storing and Organizing Board Games and Puzzles

Stuff!  We all have it, some more than others. For most of us the challenge is finding where to put the stuff and I don't mean where to shove it or store it with no hopes of easily getting to it but rather where to put it so that it can still be used for it's intended purpose by those it was intended to be used by. 


With 3 kids we have a lot of stuff but there is one category that we seem to have more than our share of ... puzzles and board games. Every year for many, many years now the girls have received puzzles and board games for Christmas. We also have a habit of buying several large puzzles every summer that the kids work on when it's too hot outside or they just aren't interested in doing anything else. Other than the space they take up while we are working on them there really isn't anything negative about puzzles. That is, until you have to store a bunch of them. Our puzzles and board games lived on the lower shelves of a gigantic bookshelf in the den since we moved in to this house and honestly, it was a site for sore eyes. I was constantly straightening them up after the kids dug through for whatever they were looking for. It was really getting to be a problem so I did what every mom would do ... I bought some baskets. Big baskets. Big enough to get 4 board games in 1 basket. While this was an improvement it still wasn't working for me. Next came the ziploc bags and this my friends is where everything came together. In 1 basket I was able to fit 19 games including 8 board games. As for the puzzles I was able to fit, are you ready for it, really you aren't going to believe this ... 34 puzzles! (Yes, we have more than 34 puzzles.) Here's how I did it ...


First off my baskets are pretty big, 19x10x13, and I bought 4 of them. I didn't really like the fabric liner that was in them so I made new ones but that will have to be a completely different post. Next came the ziploc bags. We have a lot of smaller puzzles, 100 pieces or less. For each puzzle I put the pieces in a quart size bag, cut off the front of the box with the picture, put it in the bag and zipped it up. I used the zip style bags rather than the locking type to make it easier for little hands to close them. For the larger puzzles I used gallon bags and did the same thing ... pieces in, picture cut and in, zzzzzip!  Done! Super easy! The board games weren't any different. The size of the bag depended on how many pieces there were but the concept was the same except instead of the puzzle picture I stuck the instructions in and zzzzzip! Done! What about the boards? Those are all neatly folded and at the back of the basket. Just pick out the bag with the pieces and grab the corresponding board and you're ready to play. Obviously there were a few board games that weren't going to fit in a bag so we still have those in the boxes but that's fine. The amount of space we gained was substantial and it is so much easier for the kids to find what they want, even easier to clean it up when they are finished, and it cost me less than $30 because the baskets were on sale. Think I'm crazy? Try it! You won't believe how easy it is for everyone.


Have you found an easy remedy for a storage issue in your house? If so, please share in the comment section so we can all copy ... um, I mean, be inspired, who am I kidding, I mean copy.  

This basket is 19x10x13.

That's right, 34 puzzles!

19 games including 8 board games. The boards are all folded on the right.

P.S. I keep a quart size bag nearby that has all of the stray pieces. Any puzzle piece or game piece that turns up out of place goes in the bag. If we're looking for a missing piece we have only 1 place to look, in the bag.