On the Road—5 Activities to Make Travel Fun
When you travel, play games that encourage kids to interact and observe what they see out the windows. Here are 5 activities that can be played either cooperatively or with a touch of competition. Try them out, and then create variations that suit your kids' ages and interests.
Building Words
Passengers decide on a word to "build" together. Look for the letters in roadside signs. Find each of the letters, in order, until the word is complete. Rotate who chooses a word, or let the person who spots the last letter of a word choose the next word to build.Spotting Signs
Encourage your kids to look for signs on the road. Give each passenger one or more specific signs to look out for. Stop, yield, and one-way signs are among the most common, but you can also create a point system to give extra credit for unusual signs.License-Plate Math
Kids can practice adding the numbers on license plates. Younger kids can try to spot numbers, in sequence, from 0to 9.Tallying Cars
Kids can do their own research about the popularity of car colors by recording the colors of the cars they spot on the road. They can also record the number of license plates from various states or the different makes of cars.Creating "What I See" Stories
Encourage your children to develop a "round robin" story, where each person adds a few sentences based on something observed through the window.
For more family travel games, go to 7 Family Games to Play Anywhere!