Long road trip with young children

[DanceTeacherMom]

Im taking a 6 year old and 8 year old on a 5 hour road trip on Monday. They will both be in car/booster seats and tend to get irritated and bored in the car. Any suggestions of things to buy/ take with me to keep them busy. Hopefully nothing too messy? I don't want them glued to screens the whole way, so I'm looking for anything to keep them learning but also having fun.

go to the local charity shop and buy 5 cheap toys each. Wrap in plenty of paper. give them one parcel every hour - have to guess what it is by feeling it before they unwrap it. Honestly makes the time fly by. On the way home make them wrap each others toys and repeat.

Never though of that. Don’t have a charity shop nearby but I’ll pop into home bargains and buy a few books etc. I’ve also ordered a car tray each for them to colour on and put snacks on etc. Thank you!

Janod Magnetic Books are excellent for a 6yo. There are several different ones e.g. vehicles, dinosaurs, princesses, funny faces...
We often have audio books for long car journeys. Recently got the Roald Dahl set and they keep everyone entertained.
My DC can spend ages making Scoubiedous in the back of the car. They also play top Trumps - we got the Roald Dahl one for this summer to match the audio books!
They were given an Addictaball Maze which also keeps them quiet on a long journey.
Spirographs are also good and I've seen a Bunchems On The Go Easel for sale in Sainsburys recently.

Janod Magnetic Books are excellent for a 6yo. There are several different ones e.g. vehicles, dinosaurs, princesses, funny faces...
We often have audio books for long car journeys. Recently got the Roald Dahl set and they keep everyone entertained.
My DC can spend ages making Scoubiedous the back of the car. They also play top Trumps - we got the Roald Dahl one for this summer to match the audio books!
They were given an Addictaball Maze which also keeps them quiet on a long journey.
Spirographs are also good and I've seen a Bunchems On The Go Easel for sale in Sainsburys recently.
Wow a lot of great ideas! I will check out the books for my 6 year old and my 8 year old enjoys Scoubiedous so I will be taking some with me! I have audible so I might put an audio book on if the kids get bored of the cds! My kids have a moshi monster top trump type game, ill suggest they pack that! Thank you for your suggestions!

We listen to children's podcasts, for example storynory.com.

We've also developed quite a repertoire of car games like i-spy, memory type/list games, word association games, 20 questions etc.

we have this Usborne pack of activity cards for car journeys which has some good ideas.