I love going on long drives with my family. We try to do it as often as possible, so we can discover new places. Lucky for me, my family all lives within 20 miles of my home, but if you need to drive this holiday season, let me share some of our longer trip games and things to do to occupy our kids.
Many new cars come with DVD players and much as I love them, I don't like to create zombies out of my kids. But, if we are driving for more than 25 hours, then a DVD is almost a must, so why not bring educational videos? (You know they aren't leaving!)
Some of the games we play are find the license plate. This is a great game. We take a piece of paper with all 50 states listed and then have the kids look for cars with those plates and write in the plate number. At the end of the trip, the winner gets a little prize from our prize box! (The prize box can be many things ranging from $1 to $5 in value)
You can also play trivia games. There are many trivia games that you can find online or in our case on the iPhone. I found one just for kids and they range from questions for 4 years old all the way up to 18. (There are questions the 5 year old can answer that the older kids can't.)
Twenty questions destination version! This is a take off on the classic games that involves finding out what destination you are thinking of rather than an item. (This fits more with the trip than the classic 20 question game.)
Mom's favorite is a good book! If each kid brings a book, and they can read that for hours. Although, its not good if your kids get car sick. We usually bring 3 or 4 for each child, so they have a wide variety of choices to choose from.
How many animals do you see? This one can be dangerous, because sometimes kids have wild imaginations and say they see animals they really didn't. But, it is fun to see what they come up with. It's weird when your 5 year old sees a elephant in the middle of Oregon farm country.
Now, thanks to rock band, you can bring sing-a-long CDs for the whole family and boy this can be entertaining for hours! My family loves the Beatles, Bon Jovi and even AC/DC now!
If your kids don't already have digital cameras, you can now get kids digital cameras for about $20 at Toys-R-Us and let the kids go wild with them. You can get some of the best pictures of your vacation this way. It also can entertain them for hours upon hours.
I hope this helps make your travel plans this holiday season a little more fun and a lot more tolerable. From my family to yours...Have a safe trip!
Todd
Clark - Broker / Sales Coach
Palazzo Realty Group
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739
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©2009 Todd Clark - Vacation time is fast approaching, do you plan on driving? Have something for the kids to do or it will feel like an even longer trip than it really is!
I remember playing most of those games going on trips when I was a kid
I love the count to 50 red cars game. Or the 20 yellow gars game. Etc.
Only the first rider to call out gets to count the car.
Todd, one of my favorites when driving is to see who can add the numbers on the license plates the fastest. It is fun and keeps the mind busy.
If you throw in Twisted Sister, I'd take the ride with you. Actually when we go to the Rockies....John Denver comes out as soon as we see the Mountain Range ahead. Lotsa fun!
Great tips for folks with little ones Todd. My daughter just plugs in and is happy as can be.
Todd, You're absolutely right, long car rides are much more enjoyable when all are busy if not enjoying the ride...
I hope you are having a super week,
Paul
Todd - This is a fun post filled with great ideas. I am with you on the DVD but for that long of a drive, it breaks up the time a little. A game that we like to play is the alphabet game. Basically, you have to find words that start with the letter of the alphabet in order A, then B, then C, etc. No abbreviations can be used. It gets tricky when you get to Q and Z... But we work together to find the letters. No prizes, although I do like the license place game you mentioned and may have to try that.
with our 5 kids we have done all of the above...whenever my patients runs thin, we break out the DVD however. Sometimes I would prefer they become Zombies for a few hours.
Count the cows. Competition was usually fierce. There was always a self proclaimed winner. But the real winners were in the front seats. Cheers from yester-year. BTW... even alone I still count cows . Hoping to catch an edge on future grand kids. Cheers
Great post... we travel in the summer about 13 hours and I am happy to say that my kids will be entertained. We do use the DVD but it's the exception not the rule!
Some great suggestion now how do you keep the dog occupied. She wants to sit in my lap while I drive.
Heather - They are so much fun and the kids love to win!
Jim - I've never heard of that game, but I will certainly be adding that one to the list!
Rebecca - But, then I have to add them up to see if they are right (LOL)
Larry - We have a CD called "I Love it Loud" and all it has on it is 80's hair bands!
Barb - I just feel you can't get their attention then and they don't learn anything.
Paul - Keeps their minds active and keeps them from saying "Are we there yet?"
John - Oh, I do bring the DVD player, but even on a two day ride to Yellowstone, we only used it for one movie that whole time.
Art - I could understand that!
Claude - Count the cows? In Oregon we could explode!
Dan - Hope these ideas help this next year!
Terry - We solved that problem... WE GOT A PIG! (LOL)