I have a four and six year old and we're travelling to the Gold Country in California this summer-about and 8 hour drive for us-and I was trying to think of some good games for the road trip (other than the DVD player, of course). Anyone have any fun things to keep kids and parents happy on the road?
there is a book called "Carschooling". it makes fun and educational games out of what you can do travelling in the car.
Good Luck
V.
google in car travel games and somewhere momsminivan should pop up and they have printable versions of games to play so you don't have to go out and buy them. Great ideas. Have a Great GREAT time. Wish I were going.
Traveling
Traveling for 8 hours? You are so LUCKY! I LOVE traveling with my daughters. It is uninterrupted US time! We moved from Canada to Los Angels when the girls were just 5 and 2…that trip was a little bit more than 8 hours LOL!
Then 3 years later, we traveled for 10 months from western Canada, to CA across the south to FL, then back to western Canada.
THEN, just last year we drove from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Miami, Florida.
Yes, I have spent some time in the car with my daughters. 8 hours, that is easy. Before you know it, you will be there.
Here are the things we do:
FYI - I limit movies until it’s dark – better to see the DVD screen and not much else is fun in the dark.
1. We play ARE WE THERE YET? I use poker chips. They get 1 for every 30 mins we will be on the road. I set a timer (so I don’t forget – got both the timer and the poker ships at the dollar store) and each time it rings they give me a chip and we change activities. Two things happen, 1, they don’t keep asking are we there yet and 2. I know how many activities to plan out.
**I usually have a book of jokes and I read a few each time the timer goes off...just something else to look forward to.
2. Name that tune. We play their CDs, but just until we know the name of the song. That way “elmo” doesn’t make mommy crazy. **Throw some of your fav songs in there, it is a great way to introduce them to the kids.
3. For sure give them their own backpack travel bag. A few of their special things, teddy bear, coloring book, things for a few minutes of their own quiet time.
4. 20 Questions. Remember, they can only ask yes or no questions to guess who you are thinking of…animals, people you know etc.
5. Play the colour game, letter game or number game. Cut up pieces of colored paper, make small pieces of the numbers 0-9 and the letters A-Z. you can put them in different bags or all in the same one. Everyone picks one. When they find it they put their piece of paper in their own bag and pick another one. When they are all gone you all blow kisses to the winner. Who has the most pieces of paper.
6. Treasure Bottle – I use a plastic food container with a really tight lid for this one. Fill it no more than 2/3 full with uncooked rice or birdseed. Then put in about 20-25 small objects (safety pin, plastic bugs, button, M&M, nut, bolt, paper clip, penny, bead, piece of macaroni, tiny lego, and other misc. toy pieces or stuff that is probably rolling around in your kitchen junk drawer.) Keep a count of the items and write down the number of items on the outside of the bottle.
7. I Spy – an oldie but a goodie.
8. The rhyming game. Find a one or two syllable object inside or outside of the car and ask your kids to think of words that rhyme with it
9. Storybook--Begin with "Once Upon a Time..." and have everyone take turns adding something to the story. The characters and plot can go in very interesting directions. This game really lets your child's creative juices flow!
10. Snacks: Please keep it healthy. Stay away from prepackaged snacks, they are sugary, and full of sodium, they are just empty calories that are more likely to make your kids fidgety then calm. Granola, trail mix, fruit, WATER – no juice or soda, etc.
The biggest thing is DON’T RUSH IT!
On our trip from CA to FL, we had just left Galveston Texas, our GPS said turn, but up ahead, about a mile or so we saw this enormous bridge. We just had to drive over it. So we did. DETOUR daddy yelled! It was amazing. On the other side of the bridge was this huge wooden park. I am talking HUGE. It was some sort of fort theme it was open, free and about ¼ of a acre in size. We played for almost 2 hours. Yes, it set us back in our schedule, but who cares. That was 2 years ago and the girls are still talking about it.
Be flexible. Traveling is so much fun with kids.
B.
Family Wellness Coach
Hi T.,
I think crafts keep them busy at that age, think about packing pre-cut stuff (shapes,buttons,flowers..)then take a glue stick, crayons, etc.., the glue stick makes it easy and not too messy and let them go crazy designing stuff! Also,the card game UNO is fun and easy, your little ones could play together and you dont need to know how to read just need to know colors and numbers so your 4 yr. old will enjoy it too.Just an idea..My sister in law drives from sacramento to LA several times a year with 3 kids, so she has found that leaving later in the evening and doing 1/2 the drive,stoping at a hotel and continuing in the morning makes the trip easier.Have fun:)
All the old fashioned road games are still good (the license plate game -- with your help), I Spy, 20 questions, Travel Bingo (with pictures), etc. There are so many electronic things out there and my children do enjoy those, but they end up not spending time WITH each other while travelling. We try to have some time when we're enjoying the same thing at the same time (usually includes conversation). I know it can work because our trips average 10-12 hours of drive time.
Have fun! :)
We just did the road trip to Sacramento a few weeks ago with a 6, 4 and 1 year old, all boys, and it went GREAT!!! I was so surprised at how easy it was, really!! We put them in the car in their pajamas at 5:30AM, drove three hours without stopping and went to IHOP at 8:30AM. From there it was 4 more hours, no stops except for Harris Ranch meat, and they did so so well. We made it in 7 hours and boys only watched a DVD on the last 2 hours. It was a piece of cake really.
A "Leapster."
GREAT for this age, and the games are educational and fun.
You can find it on www.amazon.com, E-Bay, Walmart etc.
My kids love it, even my 2 almost 3 year old son. He can even navigate it and learn how to use it all by himself.
Good luck,
Susan
Hello, We have always played the color of a vehicle game. Each child chooses a color and then looks for that color of a vehicle. That can go on for a while. It gives them something to watch for. I wouldn'g let anyone choose white. There are a billion of those out there.
Good luck on your trip.
K. K.
Hi, Tatania!
I am in the process of editing my new book called, The Road Trip Rescue Kit & Guide, and finishing the Airport Rescue book also! I have already published The Restaurant Rescue Kit & Guide (www.RestaurantRescueKits.com) There are 2 sections in Restaurant book with Question and Answer games, and then a Joke section that can be used anywhere, including road trips! If your husband is driving and you don't get car sick when you read, a good joke book is really fun to use for part of the trip!
In addtion to that, we just went to the Grand Canyon to test a lot of our original games that will be in the Road Trip guide book and although my 5 year old was plenty happy to watch her movies and play her school games on the computer a lot,(I got her a very inexpensive pink Dell off of ebay and lots of educational games) and also her Leap Frog (she doesn't get a lot of that at home!) she did enjoy a few of the new games we came up with which are in the Road Trip Rescue book coming out in October of this year. These are all included in the book (the original ones, other than I Spy and License plate are copyrighted so if you share, them please let people know where you got them!:>) ) Try some of these and let me know how they worked for you!
1. Treasure Hunts: Whenever you stop for gas, or even give your kids a few times when if you are passing through an interesting area, they get to ask you to stop for a treasure hunt. Give them a special bag (we just used a Victoria Secrets one!) for the treasures and spend 10 minutes or so letting them gather little treasures they would not normally see in their neck of the woods. My little girl found pine cones, different types of flowers, and fun rocks. It broke up the drive very nicely and she just loved it.
2. When you get back in the car, play a game with the treasures. Take turns making up stories about the treasures they found, how they got there, why they are the colors, shapes, etc. that they are and who might use them for what. My daughter being the princess and fairly lover that she is came up with all kinds of fairy stories about all her items. Fairies lived in one; princess was given a gift by a prince; the rocks was shiny because it had hidden jewels inside that only the real fairies / princesses could see... we went on and on. It was very fun.
3. All kinds of variations of the "license plate" game. We went through the alphabet many times in many ways. We opened it up so that not only could you use letters from the license plates, but then any word that started with the letter you were seeking on the side of a truck, a billboard, a road sign, and then even expanding it to finding things that START with the letter you are seeking (T=truck).
4. Silly songs are fun, too. We took some of her favorite songs and started changing the words to make them sound funny and silly. She LOVED that! (i.e. instead of singing "Baby Balooga" she would say "Barely Bazooka" and we'd sing it all silly. It doesn't take much to get them laughing.
5. All the variations of "I Spy" and add stuff to it. Like when someone says, "I spy a car.." you can start naming off other things that start with "c" OR have to do with a car OR make up stories about that car and the people in it. Just pick a car where you can see the people in it and then ask them where they think they are going and why, what their names are, where do they work or what kinds of games do they like... etc.
6. New Words: Make up a word with a definition and have the other person try to guess what your definition is. When they finally tell you what it means, ask them why they chose that word for that meaning. We do this also at restaurants in a different way. This game didn't make it into the first version of my book because we thought of it after. We choose an item on the table and make up a word for it. Then the rest of the evening we all had to call that item whatever the new word was (ketchup was googlop so if we wanted the ketchup we had to ask for the googlop, etc.) We started out doing this with alphabet dice that are included in my restaurant kit, making up a word using only the letters that were showing on the dice, but you don't have to use the dice.
Ok, well, those are a few of the games in my book! If any of them work well, I'd love the feedback! I am scheduled to go on a show called The Not So Perfect Parent in Dallas, TX and then the show, The Doctors which is national, this fall with the Restaurant kit, and will be mentioning the release of the Airport and Road Trip books as well, so look for me!
What about etch a sketch and doodle art type things? There are also hand held tic tax toe type games. I think Big Lots may have a lot of those type games.
Just took a road trip and one thing that helped was snacks!
I haven't read any of the other responses but here are some things we have done:
Find the alphabet on signs (can find numbers as well).
If their seats allow them to see out the window help them look for the different state's license plates (you may be surprised at how many you see).
Your older one may be able to play I Spy.
Our family sings when we drive or makes up stories about the things we see. Or sometimes with a travel guide we talk about some of the different sites along the way (takes some preparation on my part because I have to come up with age appropriate information ... mine are 3, 12, and 16).
Have each one pack a special travel bag with things they like to do ... paper, crayons, markers, scissors, playdough, stickers, reading books. If they help pack they will be more likely to want to do those things.
You could also make each one a list of things to look for along the way and as they see it they can mark it off their list ... this gets them interested in the things around them. If you know about when or where you will see these things you can remind them to be looking. Make sure you have a copy of the list(s).
Have a great trip.
My mom moved us across the country multiple times when we were kids, long before the portable DVD player. My sister and I used to make up games like the Rhyming game (one of us would come up with a word and we would take turns rhyming until a word was repeated or we couldn't think of a new one, then start with a new one) or the alphabet game (one comes up with an A word the next comes upwith a B word and so on) And I Spy! That one is a great one for littler ones because if they aren't sure of their alphabet yet they can still recognise colors and shapes.
This may have already been mentioned, but google road trip games, and a bunch of bingo games come up that you can print. It shows pictures of things like airplane, truck, motorcycle, cow, etc. Played like bingo but with pictures. There are other things to print too that they look for on the road, like license plates of different states, etc.
How fun!
You might try an eye-spy game. You and your kids could put together a list or even separate ones to address age differences and then find all the items as you go. (Some ideas: stop signs, specific colored cars, specific animals,flags, police cars.)
Also, don't forget to ask truckers to pull their horns as you go by. Some of them will and it's a sure fire way to get a laugh out of your kids and will keep their eyes busy looking for more.
video game players - PSP, DS, Game Boy!!!! Or travel at night while they are all sleeping like babies!
A bag of tricks they've never seen before. Even cheap stuff works (like 99 cent store) if it's new and somewhat interesting. Only bring out one thing at a time - like every hour or two. It's like Christmas!
Give them notebooks and disposable cameras so they can journal and photo log the trip by themselves...include crayons, and craft stuff, stick glue (a set for each) so they can glue in clippings, maps, and ticket stubs and flyers form the trip. Let each of them pick a spot on the trip (divided by miles) and let them choose a thing to do/explore in ... Read Morethat area and get restaurant choice! It is amazing to see what they liked best when reading the journals later and the pics are fantastic, even with really small kids! I used to set them up with one of those closeable clip boards (like the ones engineers use in the field) with all the stuff inside to keep things neat.
the “squiggle game” - take a note pad and someone draws a squiggle, it can be any doodle or shape, or even a line – then pass the squiggle to someone at the table and they have to make it into a quick line drawing, fish, house, mouse, tree, whatever…then they get to draw a squiggle and pass it back for the originator to draw something else…best with two colored pens or crayons so you can still identify the original squiggle, but can be done with any writing implement! Really gets their imaginations going and increases artistic confidence.
I always enjoyed interacting with my sons when we took trips. We did oral games...you children should be old enough for some:
1. "I packed my suitcase and in it I put" Do it alphabetically, but if they don't remember you tell them the next letter they can think of something with it. Also variations: " went to toy store and bought" "went to grocery store..." "went to department store" "went to zoo and saw" these teach them categories and memory work too. When they are young you may have to not do the memory part.
2. "I want you to spy" looking for various things outside car (or even in car)...first to finds gets to say what to find next.
3. Hunting for letters of Alphabet on signs
4. "I am thinking of something. What is it"
Only can answer yes and no questions. Encourage classification teaching kinds of animals...birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians. They will catch on by you doing it. Questions like is it an animal, is it a plant, is it man made also help them learn.
5. Tapes with stories...or I use to read them books and pass the books around when there was a picture or if a picture book after I finished a page. Talk about the story to...what do you think will happen next? why did he feel that way? etc.
I guess you can tell I am a teacher:0
Have fun,
H.
We played the license plate games as mentioned below. We also took letters from license plates and made words out of them. Anagrams are a good way for young kids to learn about spelling. We also sang songs and made up our own verses. One of our favorite was taking the 12 days of Christmas song and turning into the 13 days of Halloween: On the first day of Halloween, my true love gave to me a vulture in a dead tree, two howling cats, three fat toads, etc. We did that all the way down the California coast one time and laughed as we made up the verses. It worked for us.
