Long car ride with kids.. activities????

[The Mystery Machine]

When they were little we did movies and they had video games.

20 questions is one of our favorite games to play, although our 20 questions are more like until you guess it.

One yr my dad's answer was a bowling pin.

Now, when have you ever seen a bowling pin outside? Of course one of our questions was can you do it outside and he said yes. UH HUH...we never guessed it of course and still laugh about it.

Now they are teens and SLEEP.

Bring a barf bucket if you have a sickie.

 

[Hidden_Mickey]

Thanks everyone. As for the fighting, it will happen AFTER the movie or the games run out.... I will probably switch places with DD for a while so at least they will not be next to each other for a bit.

The books on cd sound great.

Mark, can we borrow your car?

 

[ilovejack02]

We have a minivan, but our smaller car gets so much better gas mileage. The kids don't mind. We use to have a Ford Tempo. We drove to Southern Texas from Northern Kansas in that.. 22 hours each way. The car seats were so tight, my hands got scratches reaching in and fastening them. They have more room than that now. A friend of ours called that car "The Sardine Can"


My kids *love* electronics. Love them. But, vacation is about experiencing new things. So, we put them away. I go without my electronic toys as well.

The kids really love playing games with the adults. I bought a couple books last summer... activities for the car. I didn't bother reading them before hand. The activities were so lame, but the kids just loved them. I recall one was "The smile game".. smile big at passing cars, and see how many people you can get to smile back. That entertained them for at least an hour.

It is funny how different everyone is. I only let my little guy have unlimited access to the DS on a trip. I drive alot by myself.. I am a SAHM so I try to do lots of family visiting by myself with the little one so we can do Disney and the beach with Daddy when he is off without feeling the guilt of needing to take DS to see the grandparents etc. Its not unusual for me to be on the road with my 6 yr old for 2 or 3 weeks alone in summer visiting all the family in Ga and Al. I sometimes drive up to 10 hours a day. I love my boy, but I cant talk to him the whole time lol... ive got to have some quiet.. hence PLEASE PLEASE play your DS . i always buy a cpl of new games before a long trip. HAHA!

I will try the books on CD for sure, but Im afraid I will get so involved Ill forget about being concentrating on the road. I make him watch DVDs with headphones, so I dont get distracted.


I did find that he loves WIKKI STIX.. kinda like pipe cleaners, but different. He played for hours with them on the road this summer.

http://www.wikkistix.com/

 

[cajunmommy]

My kids *love* electronics. Love them. But, vacation is about experiencing new things. So, we put them away. I go without my electronic toys as well.

The kids really love playing games with the adults. I bought a couple books last summer... activities for the car. I didn't bother reading them before hand. The activities were so lame, but the kids just loved them. I recall one was "The smile game".. smile big at passing cars, and see how many people you can get to smile back. That entertained them for at least an hour.

We try to strike a balance with the DVD watching. Oldest DS has had issues with car-sickness, so I won't let him read or play his DS even though he would really enjoy both. I do need to look into the books on CD, however, as an alternative.

The "smile game" brought back memories! We'd either smile & wave (like crazed idiots) or do the pump-the-arm thing trying to get the big rig drivers to blow their horns. The smile game is contagious!

Two other low-tech games my kids enjoy that I played @ their age are License Plate bingo (really just coloring in the states once you i.d. a plate) & the ABC game (A my name is Adam, my wife's name is Ann, we live in Alaska, and we sell Apples; etc.)

 

[browneyes106]

One of my coworkers recently went 18 hour roadtrip with her husband and two kids. A 12 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. She says her kids fight a lot. Since her son no longer needs a booster seat he rode in the front seat part of the way to sort of keep them from fighting. But when both kids were in the backseat they did ok. Her son just played his PSP and the daughter either read or watched a movie.

 

[luvmy3]

Long car trips are the only time my kids are allowed to play their DSes or watch movies without time limits. Whatever it takes to keeps ME sane
Invest in car chargers and convertors (You know those thigs that plug into your lighter to make an electrical outlet, I have no idea what they are called).

 

[koima]

My family had the best conversations on long trips and my dad told us outrageous stories from when he was a little boy on the farm. We also had great family talks and I opened up way more than I would have when they could look me in the face! I would be so sad not to have that talking time, and I wouldn't have heard those stories anywhere but on those long car rides, so plugging kids in and tuning them out doesn't sit so well with me. There are some fun discussion starter books like, "If..." and "The Book of Questions" and I think both have kid versions.

I bought a book called "Carschooling" and it is perfect for long trips. There are all kinds of projects and experiments that keep kids entertained, tuned in, and learning at the same time.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

Long car trips are the only time my kids are allowed to play their DSes or watch movies without time limits. Whatever it takes to keeps ME sane
Invest in car chargers and convertors (You know those thigs that plug into your lighter to make an electrical outlet, I have no idea what they are called).

These are called "inverters" and I have seen them at Walmart in the accessory aisle where the entertainment systems are. They run about $30-$35. They have several outlets so you have enough for everyone. If you want to plug systems into the cigarette lighter hole and you only have one hole, you can buy a "split" that will allow two people to use one hole.

 

[Plantlady]

My family had the best conversations on long trips and my dad told us outrageous stories from when he was a little boy on the farm. We also had great family talks and I opened up way more than I would have when they could look me in the face! I would be so sad not to have that talking time, and I wouldn't have heard those stories anywhere but on those long car rides, so plugging kids in and tuning them out doesn't sit so well with me. There are some fun discussion starter books like, "If..." and "The Book of Questions" and I think both have kid versions.

I bought a book called "Carschooling" and it is perfect for long trips. There are all kinds of projects and experiments that keep kids entertained, tuned in, and learning at the same time.

I totally agree.

 

[fun4me]

We play a lot of verbal games with each other. We have the travel bingo and another game where we find different kinds of vehicles. We also see if we can find all 50 states w/ the license plates we pass and make a list of the ones we find. I have a book of different travel games that we look through when we really need something new to do. They take some small cars, action figures and books. We also have the ds, Ipods and portable dvd player--but those don't last that long with my kiddos---or maybe our 15 hour drive is too long! LOL We take pillows and blankets for everyone too. Long drives tend to tire out my guys.

 

[SpencerB]

Some of my favorite car games include, The Verb Game, Fortunately, Pockets, and singing.
The Verb Game goes like this. Someone picks a verb like run. They replace it with a noun like cat. Everyone else guesses what the verb is by asking questions like this. "Do you CAT sitting down?" They would answer "No." because you cannot run sitting down. The game continues until someone thinks they know what the verb is and guesses correctly.
Fortunately is a story game. The first participant says something like "I went to the zoo." Next person says "UNFORTUNATELY..." and then whatever they'd like. As in, "...it started to rain." the next player says "FORTUNATELY..." and what they'd like to say. "...I had an umbrella." Next uses unfortunately. "Unfortunately it had a hole." It switches between fortunately and unfortunately until you get tired of it.
Pockets is a simple memory game. You begin with "Johnny (or whoever) has a nail in his pocket." The next person says, "Johnny has a nail and (Whatever you want, like...) gum in his pocket." Next person, "Johnny has a nail, gum, and a mouse in his pocket." Game continues until you can't remember the list of things in Johnny's pocket.
Singing is self-explanatory. I go online, get some music for my MP3 player (background music or with lyrics) and sing along with the songs.
Oh, yeah. Audiobooks are great as long as the guy who reads them doesn't drive you nuts!

 

[Hidden_Mickey]

Well, we survived! 9 hours from NYC to Williamsburg, then 3 hours to DC, then 4.5 hours home... We never watched any dvd's or listened to the audiobooks, just the Sirius. I bought them activity books, and made "goodie bags" with snacks, pencils, etc. They brought regular books, some toys and their DS's, and only tortured each other for a little while . We made some potty stops that broke it up. I did sit in the back and let DD sit in front for some of it. DS was sitting behind her so they still managed to smack each other around a bit, but not for long. I was following the map once we got south of central NJ so that kept me busy. We also looked at license plates and wrote down all the different states we saw. That kept us busy for quite a while.