Thursday, July 22, 2010

Travel Kits Ebook by TOS - A Review



Product: Travel Kits - A Simple Way to Bless Others (An Ebook)

Price: $12.45

Author: Donna Rees

Where to Purchase: TOS

Age Range: For all ages

Other products by this author: TOS E-books

Brief Summary:
If you are planning a long car ride with young children, you might as well make it fun. Donna Rees has come up with a clever way to do just that. Make a travel kit. A travel kit is filled with gifts for each child to be given out at times that you determine. Sound intriguing? Read on for more details.

In-Depth Look:
Donna Rees encourages us to try out a simple way to bless others. It is called a Travel Kit. It is a way to make road trips just a little more fun for young children. Actually it could be used for all ages, but Donna mainly focuses on ideas for younger children.

You can make the kit as simple or extravagant as you choose. You can make it as "cheap" or expensive as you choose. You can make it for your children or use it as a way to bless another family. Put it together, wrap it up and hand it out at intervals that you determine.

Donna gives very detailed specifics. Ideas for girls and boys. Ideas about how to wrap the gifts and containers to put them in. Suggestions for when to hand them out. She gives suggestions about games, books, snacks and more. With this e-book you will be well-armed to make a travel kit of your own.

So, since we are going on a road trip to Boston next week, I set off to make a travel kit for my children. I have 3 girls: 11, 8, and 1. It is a 3-hour ride to Boston and my plan was to have them open a small gift every 15 minutes.

I went to the Dollar Store with the goal of getting a lot of gifts for a little bit of money. Mostly for the 2 older girls. I already had some age-appropriate items to entertain my youngest. So how did the shopping go? Well, it took longer than I expected. I spent about an hour in the store looking around for ideas. And it ended up costing $25 for a total of 12 bags each for my 11 and 8 year old daughters. It cost more than I expected. I had hoped to find more $1 items with multiple things inside that I could divvy them up between the girls. But I could have reduced the cost by spreading it out to every 30 minutes, instead of 15 minutes. Then I would have only needed 6 bags each, instead of 12.



I found the cutest paper lunch bags with Disney characters on them at the Disney Store. One set of Tinkerbell to put all of my 8yo daughter's gifts in. One set of Princesses to put all of my 11yo daughter's gifts in. I bagged everything up and numbered them. I bought them the exact same things to avoid arguments. I numbered them so that they would open the same thing at the same time, to avoid spoiling the surprise for the other sister.



I also printed out some activities from online, such as pre-printed sheets of Hangman and Tic-Tac-Toe. Printables are a great inexpensive way to entertain young children.




I put everything into a tote bag and set it aside for the big day. Once we got into the car, I told my girls about the surprise. They had no idea and were so excited. I handed them a package every 15 minutes. It was just little things...a pen and notepad, a few pieces of gum, an activity pad, etc. But each was a surprise, something to look forward to. My daughters enjoyed it not only because of the gifts, but because they kept telling us how much more quickly time was passing because of it.

It was a huge success. My daughters loved it and I loved doing it for them. It made the ride a pleasant experience for us all.

So would you like all the insider information on what to buy, how to package it, when to present it? Ideas for putting together a package for other families? Boy gifts, girl gifts, group gifts? Gifts for younger kids and older kids? Then check out this ebook by Donna Rees. She has so many excellent ideas and tips.

Check out my crew mates' reviews .

Disclaimer: I was asked to review this product as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. The above is just my opinion. Please remember that opinions may, and do, vary.

3 comments:

  1. I'm stopping by from the TOS crew. I enjoyed your review. It looks like you did a great job,and those little bags were adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's sounds like you had a lot of fun putting your travel kits into practice. :)

    ReplyDelete