10 Road Trip Approved Car Activities for a 3-Year-Old

Thank you Maxi-Cosi for sponsoring this post. Keep your little adventurers comfy, safe & stylish with the Maxi-Cosi Magellan™ Max 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat!

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you have probably picked up on the fact that we love love love to travel. Adventure awaits and is always on our calendar…even on the calendar before we get home from a trip. Thankfully we’ve got a good little traveler when it comes to our toddler. I think part of it is, naturally, she loves to go and we’ve also always traveled since she was an itty bitty one.

I want to share with you our best travel companion and tips that help our long road trips fly by a bit faster! First and foremost, it is imperative that your little one has a comfortable adventure seat. We adults love comfort and we should make this priority for our littles too.

A few things we look for in a great adventure seat for our little one is found in the Maxi-Cosi Magellan™ Max, which is a new 5-in-1 convertible car seat that accommodates children from birth to age 10 (5lbs. to 120lbs.). This gets us through most of our adventure ages – yippee!! So from birth with your baby rear-facing to toddler rear-facing, to the toddler forward-facing, to the child forward-facing, and finally the belt positioning booster. It’s kind of a no-brainer to find a seat that meets our needs for several years, right?! Every Maxi-Cosi car seat has been designed with comfort and style in mind, incorporating premium fabrics that are machine washable, while providing a contemporary, yet timeless look.

With all of that said…seriously when your little traveler is comfy, the rest of the trip sure makes for a better ride! The Maxi-Cosi Magellan retails for $399.99 each ARV and at → Albee Baby, Nordstrom and Buy Buy Baby and other specialty retailers.

I always create a new bag of “things to do” for our preschooler. This has little prep for me as mom and is quite easy on the pocketbook. I think this cost me less than $15 bucks…can’t beat that, right? For hours of entertainment!!

10 Road Trip Approved Car Activities for a 3-Year-Old

Items needed to create these car activities for a 3-year-old…which can be adapted easily for a 2-year-old or 4-year-old. These are just fun activities for road tripping with kiddos.

Clothespins
Modeling Clay
Popsicle Sticks
Crayons
Notebook
Number Flash Cards
Same/Different Flash Cards
Pipe Cleaners
Pony Beads
Pom-Pom Balls
Lacing Cards

Car Activities for a 3-Year-Old

You can organize all of your items into your small bag and have it easy to access throughout your ride.

1 – Coloring book and crayons – Classic, but timeless and my little one loves it. She loves coloring at home so I know she’s going to love it in the car as well. If your little one doesn’t enjoy it at home, odds are they won’t in the car either.

2 – Clothespin Number Matching Game – Take 10 clothespins, then write the numbers 0-9 on the pins. Take your popsicle sticks and write a corresponding number on it and have them match and “pin” the popsicle stick.

3 – Clothespin Color Matching Game – PREP ahead of time –> color your clothespins to correspond with the colors of the popsicle sticks and they can match/pin colors.

4 – Take your modeling clay and roll it to make letters! – We are working on our vowels so it’s a perfect time to work on recognizing those letters and making the sound each makes.

5 – Lacing Cards – Are always a favorite in our little world and keeps her busy for quite a length of time!

6 – Sort Pom-Pom Balls – Take your pom pom balls and sort them by colors. I will also call out a color and she has to find it and give it to me!

7 – Make Bracelets – Use your pipe cleaners and pony beads to make bracelets. We usually make everyone we have ever known a bracelet when on a road trip!!!

8 – Number Flashcards – This is a great time to do some flashcard practice and recognize counting and numbers. I always make sure I buy a new set for a road trip!

9 – Same and Different Flash Cards

10 – Coding with Pom-Poms – make color patterns to get a head start on teaching your preschool to code and sequence! They love it once they get the concept.

With the given supplies can you think of any other variations? PLEASE let me know! We always try to pack the least amount we can and get the most out of it! It takes a wee-bit of planning on the part of mama but it’s so worth it to make the road trip more enjoyable!

Hi I’m Erin a Southern mama from South Mississippi, owner and chief editor of Sixth Bloom a blog helping mom-tographers capture their kiddos and life, as well as talking all things home, parenting and how we navigate through life. You will find me living life to the fullest with my mister (aka husband) and our little three year old preschooler, Miss E, in our 500+ sq foot cottage as we build our dream house on our two acres! We are blessed beyond measure… we love to travel and love being involved in ministry opportunities at our church.