Heading on a Road Trip?

While the idea of driving hours with a car full of children may send shivers down the spine of even the most patient of parents, a family road trip doesn’t have to be a stressful endeavour. There are lots of games you can play with your children that will keep the "are we there yets" at bay. Best of all, they won’t cost you a thing. As you plan your road trip, make sure you take some time to plan activities and games for the small travellers in the car! Here is a list of some road trip games and activities you can play with young children.

The ABC Game: Objective is to complete the alphabet first. As you see the letters on billboards & license plates you shout out your letter and point. Once a letter has been claimed other players cannot use the same letter. Make it harder by limiting to only license plates or billboard signs.

Alphabet Signs: [A variation of the ABC game above]
One person chose the right side of the road and the other person had the left. The object of the game was to cite all of the letters of the alphabet ,in order, from a to z. You could only use a sign for one letter. The person on the left side usually had to sit sideways and read signs as they receded. The first person to z won.

Animals: Take turns naming animals from a-z. (I keep at each letter until we have exhausted all animals!)

The Cow Game: This is a car game called "The Cow Game". Works well if you are a family of four, so 2 of you take the right side of the road and 2 the left. You keep a count of all the cows you pass throughout the day. But every time you pass a cemetery on your side of the road, you lose all your points. The winner at the end of the day's drive gets a treat!

License Plate Bingo: To play this game you’ll need to bring along a few writing utensils and have paper to use for game cards. Write down random letters and numbers in your BINGO squares. As players see the letters and numbers on passing license plates they cross them off. First player to get 5 in a row wins, and it might be a good idea to keep a few prizes on hand for the lucky winner

The Banana Game: Single out yellow vehicles with the banana game. Players get points for each yellow car they point out passing. Double points are awarded for buses and larger yellow vehicles. Be prepared, this could get competitive!

Map Monitors: One easy way to keep children entertained on the road is to engage them in the process of travel. Give each child a map of your trip and allow them to keep track of your progress using stickers, coloring or something else your child enjoys.

Find 10: Occupy your kids with counting using Find 10. Choose a colour or object and keep counting until you reach 100. Try counting churches, red cars or anything else you can think of. Mix it up by giving each player a different object to find 10 of and race to see who can finish first *Younger children can be given a smaller number like 2

Listen to an E-Story on a CD : There are a number of well known stories for kids now available on E-Book

Listen to Children's Music: Get yourself some good kids CDs with familiar rhymes and songs on them a so that the whole family can have a sing-a-long.

Have some old and some new (unseen) books: Children will be content to look at familiar books for a while and also be intrigued at new ones. New books can be good when mum jumps over the back for a read along!! I also like Eye Spy Books whenever we are travelling.

Here are some of my top picks on items that will hopefully help eliminate the "Are we there yet?" question

LeapFrog: Tag: Interactive Books for Kids

Travel size Etch A Sketch and Magna Doodle.

Kid Knex Bucket of Buddies

I also like to have the kids things organised in a neat and tidy compact way when we are travelling. This way the kids can easy access their books, toys, games, drink bottles, snacks etc