Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – ESSENTIAL TIPS & TOOLS – RV Essentials & Toys for Kids

This week’s Friendly Friday Photo Challenge comes from Sandy at The Sandy Chronicles. The theme this week is Essential Tips & Tools so I’ve decided to combine and re-post two posts that I wrote over a year ago: 17 Essential Items for Living in Your RV and The 10 Best RV Toys For Kids. Thanks again to Sandy and Amanda for alternately co-hosting these fun weekly photo challenges. I really enjoy getting these “assignments” and coming up with ways to fulfill the themes that these talented and creative women come up with each week. If you would like to participate please visit The Sandy Chronicles for the rules.

I wrote the following posts after living full-time in our Winnebago for 6 months. These are items and toys that I would recommend for anyone with an RV whether they use it as a full-time residence or for occasional travel. Some of the items and toys are useful in any home!

First I’ll tell you about some of our favorite housekeeping RV items. Most of the items listed, either smell good, save space or make cooking/cleaning/laundry easier. This is a list of interior items for homemaking, cleaning and organizing. This list does not include outdoor items like sewer hoses, water filters, bike racks, etc. I hope you find my list helpful for your own traveling, homemaking or RV living needs!

1. Poo-pourri – keeps the shared toilets fresher (thanks for the tip Mom)!

2. Lavender Lotion – my hands get dry from hand-washing the dishes and this magical stuff from Lavender Ranch is my absolute fave!

3. Meyer’s Muli-Surface cleaner in lavender scent.

4. Method Daily Shower spray – use after every shower to help keep it cleaner & fresher.

5. Happy Camper toilet tank treatment & collapsible step stool

6. Method foaming hand wash – the foam soap is already in a lather and ready to to scrub. You’ll use less water than with regular hand soap (thanks to J.C. for the tip).

7. Kirkland laundry soap pods – these are so convenient, especially because we alway use laundromats. There’s no need to measure or rinse measuring cups, just grab’em & go!

8. Kirkland disinfecting wipes – make countertop cleanup a breeze.

9. Costco clear plastic storage bins, small and large – the small bins hold Legos, coffee pods, school supplies, and office supplies in the indoor cabinets – the large bins hold books, tools, sports equipment and pantry food items in the outdoor bays.

10. Command hooks – we bought our Winnebago pre-owned, and a big “thanks” goes out to whoever owned it first and set up so many Command hooks. This rig was move-in ready! I like the silver colored hooks the best.

11. Electric pencil sharpener – such a lifesaver for roadschooling with 3 kiddos!

12. HP 3755 printer – compact in size and also has scanning and copying functions. I mostly use the printer for roadschooling purposes.

13. Joseph Nesting Bowl Set – this 9 piece nesting set has: a large mixing bowl, colander, sieve, small mixing bowl, 4 measuring cups and a Tablespoon measure.

14. Rosle nesting cooking pots with small handles & lids – anything that nests is great for saving space and these short handles save space too.

15. Duralex dinner plates, salad plates, bowls and 1/2 pint glasses – these heat tempered glass dishes haven’t broken yet and I’d much rather eat off of glass than plastic.

16. Keurig K-Mini Single Serve Coffee Maker & stainless steel mugs – the cleanest, most convenient, and most break-resistant way to make coffee.

17. Three knives with knife sheaths – Wusthof Classic bread knife (great for bread and cheese), Wusthof Classic Santoku knife (great for chopping veggies and apples), and Victorinox serrated steak knife with round tip (great for tomatoes, citrus fruit, strawberries, etc…).

Now that I’ve shared our favorite housekeeping items with you, I’ll show you our favorite toys for kids to have in an RV. Toys are important to have in an RV for keeping kids busy, entertained and occupied. It is handy if the toys don’t take up a lot of space. At the time that I originally wrote this post, our kiddos were ages 5, 6 and 9. In no particular order, here are 10 of our favorite toys.

1. Legos/Lego Technic/Lego Friends – each kiddo has a small clear storage bin from Costco for their Lego collection. They have all been enjoying making stop-motion animation using an old cell phone camera. I’m going to give them this “outdoor adventure people pack” on our 6 month Winnebago anniversary. RV Living Quarterly Report June 2019 – Six Month Stats and Traveling Insights

2. Mad Mattr Brick Builder – this stuff never dries out and doesn’t get stuck in hair, clothes, or carpet. It’s all the fun of play dough, with super easy cleanup. We got a pink pack and a blue pack and after a few minutes there was only purple!

3. Sticker Mosaics – these are great for driving days, they combine art with fine motor skills and number recognition. It’s the least messy art project we have found.

4. Hot Wheels Track Builder Stunt Box, and Hot Wheels cars – this set combines Hot Wheels tracks with Lego type bricks and everything gets put away in the plastic bin that doubles as part of the track.

5. Games: Our most frequently played board games are: Destination USA & Clue Junior (thanks Rookie Roadsters for the suggestions), Uno, Battleship, Checkers/Chess/Chinese Checkers, and Jenga.

*We started having friends that we meet sign their name on a Jenga block with a permanent marker as our RV “guest book”.

6. Book Series: Little House on the Prairie, The Boxcar Children, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Ralph books, and American Girl

7. Prismacolor colored pencils and white paper – our kiddos have drawing time almost every night before bed while I read aloud.

8. Bikes and helmets – we have had lots of fun riding bikes. K and B both graduated from training wheels since we started living in the Winnebago.

9. Razor scooters and helmets – when we are staying at an RV park that has paved roads/sidewalks, the scooters are quick and easy to pull out for a ride around the block. (Add a plastic shopping bag for a parachute cape, lol)

• We also purchased a “slow sign” that makes me feel better about the kids riding bikes and scooters in some RV parks that don’t monitor the speed limit as well as I’d like.

10. DVDs – I’d love to be one of those families that doesn’t watch any TV. But we’re just not one of those families. We all look forward to Friday night movie night when we watch an episode of the Little House on the Prairie TV series staring Michael Landon. I have some educational options like What’s in the Bible with Buck Denver (thanks to L.R. for the suggestion), Liberty’s Kids, and Reading Rainbow. I really enjoy books made into movies so we can read a book, then watch a movie and discuss the differences and similarities. Charlotte’s Web, Winnie-the-Pooh, Ramona and Beezus, and The Secret Garden are some of our past favorites. I’m planning on using American Girl books and DVDs, Heidi, Mandie, and My Side of the Mountain in the future. We are currently reading and watching the Little House on the Prairie series. To save space, we store our DVDs in a zippered case. We toss the plastic cases that the DVDs come in into the recycling bin.

For more RV toy ideas for kids you can check out More Awesome RV Toys for Kids.

As always, thank you for following us or popping by for a visit! We hope you have a wonder-ful weekend!

🚌 Do you know of any great RV items for housekeeping or entertaining kiddos that I missed?