If you’re heading out on a road trip, you’re going to need to be inspired to keep little kids entertained and occupied. If you’re lucky, they may just fall asleep for hours on end, but if not, have fun with them with these great car games…

Cars

You’re surrounded by cars, so what better idea than to take advantage of them? Each family probably has their own version of the car game and the only limit to yours is your imagination. You could, for instance, have each child pick a color and then the first child to spot 10 of their color cars wins the game. If you want to make it more difficult and potentially keep them occupied for even longer, have them choose a state (usually not the one you’re in) and whoever identifies five number plates from that state first is the winner. You could vary it with slightly older children by opting for a specific brand of car that they need to identify instead.

I Spy

I Spyis another classic game for a reason; you don’t need anything but the power of your own mind. It’s also a great way to help your child develop their reasoning skills and logic. With older children you can play the traditional “I spy something beginning with S…’ while with pre-school children, you can make it easier by saying “I spy something that begins with the ‘s’ sound...” As they guess, you can give them more clues such as “it starts with the s sound and is a color that starts with the ‘b’ sound…” Give them as many clues as they need until they guess the object. Don’t forget that you can use items both inside and outside the car, such as landmarks and signs, as long as the latter will remain there for the entire duration of the game.

Travel Bingo

Travel bingo can be a great activity for preschool kids and older; all it requires is just a little forethought. The idea is for the children to look for items during your journey that they can then mark off on their bingo card. The bingo card should be pre-made by you and could include things such as clouds, a blue car, a stop sign, a tree etc…

The good thing about this version of travel bingo is that it can be tweaked according to the occasion and the age of the player. If you’re traveling by airplane, for instance, you may want to adapt the items to find to include things such as a red suitcase, an escalator, an airplane, an airplane window etc… Likewise, you can make the items needed to be found more complicated for an older child, such as trying to find a particular shapein a cloud or more than one of the object.

Singing and Dancing

Kids will love to sing and dance along to music when in the car (just make sure they’re still buckled up, of course). It’s usually worth investing in some child-friendly CDs or music just in case the radio gets too boring.