Posted on September 1, 2011 by admin | in Nanny
Road trips are great, but sometimes getting there with your sanity intact is a difficult feat. Kids tend to have pretty short attention spans, but with the invention of the portable DVD player and other electronic devices the old standby games for car trips have been almost forgotten. Try giving the electronics a rest for a while on your next car trip and try some of these, 10 great car games for kids.
- License plate game: This is a favorite of my family. You can go online and print out a list of all of the states and their license plates. Then everyone watches license plates and they pass by you on the road. When you see a state you check it off your list. A variation of this game would be to print out a picture of the U.S. and when you see that state’s license plate you color in the state on the map.
- Invisible writing: One child uses their finger to write letters on the hand of the other child. When they get the word they can say it and if they are right they get to be the writer. If that gets to be too easy you can switch to questions or sentences. Just make sure to pause between words.
- Travel bingo: You can go online and print out Bingo boards so that everyone has a different board. They sell these games at tourist areas as well that can be reused over and over. The Bingo board has pictures of things you might see along the road. If you see a place or thing pictured on your board you get to mark that spot. Just like normal Bingo you can win by making a line across, down or diagonally.
- Imaginary Hide and Seek: One person is “It” and they get to imagine a place where they are hiding in their house. The fun part is that it can be anywhere. If they want to hide in the sock drawer that is fine or inside the refrigerator that’s okay too. Everyone then has to ask only yes or no questions to figure out where you are hiding.
- Alphabet game: Someone gives a topic like animals and then the youngest or the oldest player starts and has to name an animal that starts with the letter “A” and the next person names an animal that starts with the letter “B” and so on. Change the topic and it’s a whole new game.
- I Spy: Someone says, “I Spy with my little eye something red”. Then everyone gets to ask yes or no questions until they can guess what it is that you spy. Or for a variation on this game you can have the person continue to give hints until someone guesses what it is they spied.
- Fortunately/Unfortunately: This is a really fun game that will get your child’s imagination working over-time. Someone starts and says, “Unfortunately, there is a shark in the back seat” and the next person has to pick the opposite side and say, “Fortunately, he is a vegetarian”. You go back and forth about any topic, but it will help your children look at both sides of an argument and figure out how to make a bad situation better.
- Counting games: What you count is up to you guys. If you are going through rural Nebraska I would not suggest you count restaurants. And if you are driving through a big city I would suggest not counting cows. This game can be a lot of fun and there are variations. Say you are counting red cars, but when a purple car comes along you lose all of the ones you’ve counted and have to start over. Different rules can be determined for your car.
- My father owns a grocery store…: In this game each person has to recite the whole list that has come before them and then add one. For example, “My father owns a grocery store and in it he sells apples.” The next person says, “My father owns a grocery store and in it he sells apples and bananas.” Then the next person says, “My father owns a grocery store and in it he sells, apples, bananas and coffee.” And the play continues on until someone forgets and then they can either be out or you can give them hints to help them remember.
- What movie? When my family and I are on car trips and a song comes on the radio that has been in a move we call out, “What movie?” The first person to guess the movie that you are thinking of gets a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the trip wins.
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