As your family grows it will become more and more difficult to keep everyone entertained especially during long roadtrips back to grandma’s without the telly or toys to keep everyone occupied. Instead of silencing everyone or blasting educational phonetical CDs which may end up creating more tension for everyone in the car, how about playing a fun car game. Car games can be plenty of fun for both parent and child without the need of any props or toys, which also provides the both of you a great opportunity to bond. Also, you may want to reward a winner with ice cream at the end of the trip as incentive!
Here are some fun games you can try out:
Colors
Pick a color each and within a specified time limit, see who can spot the most cars with the color of their choice!
Adding Up
Watch out for the car plate numbers of cars in front of your vehicle and get everyone to compete to see who can add up the fastest! For example 9384 would mean 9+3+8+4=24! Adults can’t play in this one!
The Radio Game
Randomly scan stations and everytime it stops, the first person to guess the song playing correctly wins.
Evens or Odds
Making use of carplates again, this game is to be played by two people each taking either odd or end. The person who manages to identify the most vehicles ending with an odd or even number (depending on their category) wins!
Guessing Game
This game will take awhile to play and is similar to charades but unlike the latter, a category is given for each round and everyone asks questions to the a single person until they can guess what, who or where they’re thinking of.
Moo, Woof, Meow
As once seen in an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted and Marshall take a roadtrip and get stuck in a storm, they pass time on the road by seeing you notices the most dogs on the road. You say dibs (our version of chup!) when you see one. Pick an animal that’s more commonly seen.
Storytelling
One person starts the story with a single sentence followed by the next person. Continue until the story ends. This game encourages thinking out of the box and will draw plenty of laughter!
Rhyme and Thyme
This game requires more brain power but what better way to pass long car rides than to stimulate the mind! First person starts with a word, next person says a word that rhymes with it and this goes on until no one can figure out another word to replace it. Example, shell, well, bell, dell…
There are of course plenty of other variations of games that can be derived from the above suggestions. They may sound very simple to grownups but to children who are always looking for a little excitement or challenge, simple games like these can help keep them occupied especially when waiting is involved such as hospital rooms, grocery shopping and yes, car rides.
Children these days may be a bit more difficult to entertain what with many of them already owning techy gadgets at such a young age but getting them to rely on technology is not healthy as children need to be curious, intuitive and adaptable with what reality has to offer. So keep those tablets and smartphones and let’s play some good ol’ games!
