Games while on the road

[CakeHenn]

So Thursday we are taking off to go down to the coast. It will be about a 5 hour drive with the kids strapped in car seats the entire time. We did have some in car dvd players but they just broke recently. With all the expenses of the upcoming trip I did not want to buy a new system.

My girls are 3 and 5. With that in mind what are some games and activities we can do with them while driving?

[sdianel_-acct_c]

I guess singing "99 Bottle of Beer on the Wall" won't work?? LOL. That's what we did. Drove our parents crazy!!

[korbe]

Just finished a beautiful drive along hwy 38 between Sutherlin and Reedsport, in Oregon. My brother and his family (from LA) were following us. When we stopped in Reedsport for groceries I asked my brothers' daughter if she saw the elk, she said no. I asked how she liked the river, she said, what river. She was focused on her iphone the whole time. what a waste.

Hopefully any games will be visually focused to the outside of the vehicle.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Books on tape!

I never go anywhere with the Grandkids without getting some fresh stories from the library. Downside is that more than once I've had to sit with the vehicle idling until we "got through the good part" of the story...

[Ric_Flair]

We play "daddy breaks wind, can we get to the windows before he gets to the child lock" game.

[johnm1]

BTW: I was kidding on my last post. We're going out west next month with some REALLY LONG days driving and I started looking over that momsminivan website. Wholly cow there's some good stuff in there! I'll be printing a lot of it. Thanks CakeHenn!

[ependydad]

We play the license plate game - see who can find the most different license plates. Might be hard with a 3 and 5 year old.

The other game we'll do is go through the alphabet finding words that start with that letter on a sign, other vehicle or building, etc. (e.g. I get "A" for a sign for Albany, now everyone looks for "B" words). Again, might be a bit above grade for your kids.

We've spent time doing tongue twisters. My daughter recently fell in love with "99 bottles of beer on the wall" (much to my chagrin).

Books are big ones for us- picture books and activity books (crayons and pencils).

Many things that they do at home can be done in the car. If they play with Barbies or GI Joes, they can play with them in the car.

There's also "watch the world go by".

Sometimes my daughter will count how many people she can get to wave at her.

Putting music on and singing.

[johnm1]

bradnailer wrote:
I made our girls sit in the back and be bored like I did when I was a kid. 🙂

Cute ... I was kind of thinking the same thing. 🙂

[bradnailer]

I made our girls sit in the back and be bored like I did when I was a kid. 🙂

[CakeHenn]

So google...or in this case BING...is your friend. I just found this site: http://www.momsminivan.com/printables.html
It has some great printable games...like car bingo, some songs, etc.

[CakeHenn]

Reader1 wrote:
Some suggestions:
1. I spy a (red truck) - make sure you name something the girls will quickly see.
2. Tell a story with each person adding a sentence - I see a red van, they are going to...
3. Make sure you notice quirky things and point them out.
4. Our grandkids know that we only go camping to have fun. When we see any kind of RV going down the highway - we all yell, "Have a very fun time!"
5. Some quiet time - listen to their favorite music, etc will help them rest.
Have a great time!

Yeah I plan to kill at least an hour or so with the girls napping. Our plan is to drive about two hours and make a stop at Bucee's to top off my tank use the restrooms and then get lunch to take with us. So eating will kill some time as well.

[CakeHenn]

One little game we play is the A-Z game...don't know what it's really called. You start with A and someone has to find something that starts with an A...then when that's found you go to B and so on.

We also sometimes count other RVs...but that's a game we normally play on shorter trips and it's more of a constant deal and not so much really a game.

[Reader1]

Some suggestions:
1. I spy a (red truck) - make sure you name something the girls will quickly see.
2. Tell a story with each person adding a sentence - I see a red van, they are going to...
3. Make sure you notice quirky things and point them out.
4. Our grandkids know that we only go camping to have fun. When we see any kind of RV going down the highway - we all yell, "Have a very fun time!"
5. Some quiet time - listen to their favorite music, etc will help them rest.
Have a great time!

[NanciL]

One of our favorites is: I am looking for a white cow, (can be anything, like a red truck, a tractor, etc). the first one to see it gets to pick the next.

Jack L