Wednesday 25 April 2018

Play Car Games That Entertain Or Teach

By Kimberly Clark


If you watch films it seems road trips can be lots of fun or a nightmare of disasters which end with you going over a cliff. In real life long journeys are just dull and the children get bored. If you have young kids it can be very difficult to keep them entertained and a good idea is to play car games to keep them occupied.

Toddlers and very young children will hopefully sleep for a fair proportion of the trip and be entertained by cheerful songs like The Wheels on The Bus. Teenagers tend to be attached to their phones listening to the latest music and keeping up with social media. Somewhere in the middle there is a lot of boredom and the inevitable Are We There Yet every five minutes.

There are a lot of things that can be done while driving to keep little minds busy. If you are travelling a scenic route or through towns you can give the children lists of things they might see to tick off as they go past. Whoever sees something first gets to check it off and the winner is the one with most checked off. Pick sites of interest or things that are likely to be seen on your chosen route. It is unfair to ask them to look for cows in the middle of downtown New York.

You can help your children learn their multiplication tables with a number game. Take turns saying the next number in a sequence or count from one to a hundred but replace the numbers that divide by four with a funny word. Decide which tables are appropriate for the age of the children. Maybe the youngest says a word on all the fives and the eldest has to say another word for prime numbers. There can be many ways to keep score or simply see how far from the start you can get.

Name that tune is a popular game to play and you do not need a piano or music. Hum the start of a tune and see who guesses quickest. This can be extremely funny and almost impossible if the person humming is not very musical. Twist things around and try TV show themes or movie music. The possibilities are endless.

Journeys on the freeway can be particularly dull. Miles and miles of road and cars and little else to see. Pick a color that is unusual like pink or orange and the first person to spot a vehicle that color gets to set the next thing to look for. It might be a RV or cow in a field depending on where you are driving.

On busy holidays and when weather is bad you may find yourself stuck in traffic. On the freeway you can look out for a person wearing glasses or with red hair. Again, the person who spots first gets to pick the next thing to look for. Alternately each have a different thing to spot and whoever gets to ten first wins.

A Long journey does not have to be boring or end up with the family arguing. A little planning and a pen and paper for the children and they can easily be entertained. It can also be a fun way for them to learn their times tables.




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