Carschooling Award Winner!
The author of Carschooling, Diane Flynn Keith, and her team of Carschooling Reviewers have bestowed the coveted “Carschooling Award” upon the following backseat boredom busters that help YOU make the most of every mile.
We’ve also included links to FREE “Bonus” items (within the reviews) that will help you extend the fun and learning while you’re on the road!
Note: We received free review copies of these products from the vendor mentioned in the review with no compensation or obligation to write a review or bestow the “Carschooling Award.” The products listed here are linked to our Amazon.com affiliate to make purchasing them a snap!
Winner: Klutz Press!
Get more fun and family interaction out of those long miles and actually learn something along the way with Klutz Press’ innovative car games and activities.
Here’s a “Klutz Kurriculum” of fun and brain-boosting activities to take along on your family road trips:
Road Trip Trivia: A Big Book of Backseat Brainteasers
This combination flip chart and score card teaches fun trivia facts about insects, anatomy, plants, history, science, foreign languages, and will even improve your vocabulary! There are 286 questions to keep you guessing such as: “How many bones does an adult shark have?” “Why does the moon glow?” “What are you scared of if you have scolionophobia?” Buy the book to find the answers to these questions and more – you’re certain to agree it’s a vast improvement over, “Are we there yet?”
Kids Travel: A Backseat Survival Kit
Learn about U.S. geography by searching for car license plates. Practice your spelling with Hangman! Explore the pseudo-science of palmistry. Take a driver’s test, solve a mystery, and communicate with American Sign Language. Hone your spy skills by detecting handwriting forgeries. Draw a comic superhero! Pass the miles by making friendship bracelets and hair wraps. There’s even acollection of car songs for backseat Divas! Amuse your kids with this complete curriculum for the road.
The Buck Book: All Sorts of Things To Do With A Dollar Bill – Besides Spend It
Besides Spend It. – Use a dollar bill to teach social sciences while engaging in creative arts! Learn the symbolic meaning of the Great Seal of the United States and why we call dollar bills “bucks.” Then, follow the step-by-step instructions to fold your dollar bill into a bow tie, a ring, or a jumping frog! Imagine the look on the toll-booth attendants face when you hand them currency shaped like a peacock! You don’t have a dollar bill? No worries – one comes with the book!
A Super-Sneaky, Double-Crossing, Up, Down, Round & Round Maze Book
Twenty-five endlessly re-usable mazes to trace with your fingertip. For ages 4 and up.
Bonus: Make your own mazes with this Free maze generator. Print them out and take them along in the car!
The Etch-A-Sketch Book
This book provides the classic drawing toy and 12 vinyl pages that cling to the Etch A Sketch screen, creating game boards, mazes, challenges, and more. For ages 6 and up.
The Cootie Catcher Book
A clever little book about the classic kids’ fortune-teller, with 20 pre-printed, tear-em-out-and-fold-em-up pages. Plus instructions on how to make your own cootie catchers and the fortunes to go inside. For ages 6 and up.
Bonus: Print out a pattern and instructions for making your own cootie catcher and along with some fortune ideas.
Road Trip Trivia
This powerful boredom-buster is full of trivia in a game-quiz format. Here’s how it works: Each pages has five questions. Answer each question by sliding the peg to the multiple-choice answer you think is right. Flip the book over to see the correct answers. Does pondering fundamentally inconsequential information like this make the miles fly? Do bedbugs bark? (Answers: Yes and, believe it or not, yes.) For ages 9 and up.
Activity Book: The Only Coloring, Puzzle, Game, Dot-to Dot Activity Book
You’ll Ever Need Contains pages of crayon-and-paper play, hidden pictures, mazes, fold-ups, games, and other stuff. Includes 5 colorful soft wax pencils for coloring inside or outside the lines. For ages 4 and up.
Bonus: Use this data base of coloring pages to print out pictures on any subject. Then, bring them along in the car for hours of backseat fun.
Sticker Book: The Most Incredible, Outrageous, Packed-To-The-Gills Bulging-At-The-Seams Sticker Book You’Ve Ever Seen
A book filled with over 450 stickers along with instructions for making one-of-a-kind envelopes, boxes and cards and decorating them with (you guessed it) stickers. For ages 3 and up.
Bonus: Make Your Own Stickers to bring along in the car!
Pipe Cleaners Gone Crazy: A Complete Guide to Bending Fuzzy Sticks
Step-by-step instructions for making pipe cleaner animals, jewelry, people and more. Comes with enough pipe cleaners (in a variety of sizes and colors) to make every project in the book. Ages 4-8.
Bonus: Get instructions for how to make Pipe Cleaner People!
Nancy Cassidy’s KidsSongs: The Sing Along Songbook
One of the most popular children’s recording artists in the country offers you a two CD package with a brand new, full color book of lyrics! Includes favorites like You Gotta Sing, Shake Your Sillies Out, Chicken Lips and Day-O. Ages: 0 months and up.
Bonus: Learn more about Nancy Cassidy!
Doodle Faces
Everything you need to doodle. The reinforced back cover holds a 35 foot roll of paper and also serves as a sturdy built-in work surface. Do a doodle, pull the paper down, tear off your masterpiece neatly and start all over again. Includes pencil that clips neatly into its holster for storage. For ages 6 and up.
Especially for Little Kids
Chicken Socks: Highlight This Book
Comes with a five-colors-in-one fun highlighter pen to uncover dot-to-dots, do mazes, find hidden pictures, and do coloring pages. For ages 4 and up.
Chicken Socks: Magnetic A to Z Activity Book
A brilliant cross between a book and a refrigerator door. Three of this book’s pages are heavy-gauge steel, silk-screened with helpful art. The other 12 pages are cardstock and filled with the familiar Klutz wit and imagination. The magnets themselves go from A to Z — literally: 26 custom-made, brightly colored, finger-friendly letters. Early readers are led through lettering and simple word-building, as well as a little recess time making letter pictures. (Turns out you can make a fine caterpillar out of a cap B and D. Who knew?) Comes with 26 all-capital magnets in 4 custom colors and 3 metal pages. For ages 4 and up.
Chicken Socks: Amazing Lacing
A book full of new ideas for a classic activity. Comes with punched, die-cut pages for easy lacing and 10 easy-to-use laces in a variety of materials and colors. For ages 4 and up.
Chicken Socks: Rescue Trucks
This books pages fold out into extra-long highways — full-color playscapes featuring all sorts of calamities: fallen bridges, flooded highways, forest fires, and so on. Flip the fold-outs over and a new set of playscapes (with black and white art) invite a lot of color-me-in time. Klutz threw in build-’em-yourself instructions for things like paper tube tunnels and shoebox bridges. Last but not least, are the rescue vehicles themselves: a fire engine, police cruiser, tow truck and snow plow. It’s an entire search-and-rescue team, lap-top style. Written For ages 4 and up.