Fun for kids traveling in cars

Redeem the Time with Kids Traveling in Cars

Reading

If you read really exciting books, it can expand your children’s imaginations as well as keep them quiet for long periods of time. If you are driving the vehicle, an older sibling can be the one to read--just make sure the book is interesting for the reader, but also doesn’t go over the head of your youngest. Another option is to check out audio books from the library. Reading aloud is especially great on long road trips when there is one adult to drive, and one to read. If we ever tried to stop reading out loud, our kids begged for more--my grown daughter still loves traveling in cars because of the fond memories she has of our road trips. If you think this is only for little kids, you will miss out on many years of shared reading. When my brother and I were in high school, our parents took us on a trip across the U.S. My brother had to read “The Hobbit” for summer reading, but was having trouble getting into it. So my mom read it out loud. We all got hooked, and when my dad stopped to pump gas, he would beg, “Don’t start reading till I get back!” Just keep reading, and you can keep doing it even when your kids are in college, believe it or not!! Just ditch any book that is boring, and keep adjusting to the age and interests of the audience.

Number Games

The little bits of time that you ride in the car here and there is the perfect time to squeeze in some number time. The more familiar your kids become with numbers, the more confident they will be doing math in school. It really depends on the age of your children for what will work for this. For each age, there are ways to make numbers fun for kids. Rote memorization isn’t so fun, but if everyone is counting out loud together in the car, they just join in because it seems the thing to do. How about these ideas:

1.Count to 100-- make it a game, if a little competition helps, to count objects that there are a lot of--such as cars, or cars of a certain color.
2.Count backwards : This activity helps with subtraction. Start with counting down from 10, like a rocket launch--you could do it for waiting for red lights--see how close you can get the light turning green as you hit 0. When your kids get good at that, count down from 20, 50 and 100. Once they can count well in unison, at random times, stop counting, and let the next person pick up where you left off. If your child has trouble with this, make sure he has a 100’s chart to look at, then try again without it once he catches on. The chart shown in the photo above can be written on with dry erase markers. You can make your own hundreds chart on the computer, print it out and cover it with contact paper, or buy one at a school supply store.
3.Skip counting by 10’s, 5’s, 2’s, 3’s, (10, 20, 30, 40, etc.or 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) This helps them learn the patterns, and prepares them for multiplication. A hundreds chart helps them while they are learning, and repetition is key.
4.Number bingo
5.War--use a pack of cards minus the king, queen and jokers. Shuffle, then deal all cards to 2 players. Take turns turning up the top cards, and higher number takes all.
6.Sudoku--buy a book of these puzzles at a dollar store, and tear out a page for each child. Award a small prize if outside motivation is needed.

Discussion Questions

Start a family discussion--some questions can be just for fun, and others more thought provoking to explore important ideas or values. You may discover something about your child that you never knew!! Or you might help your children think through some really important issues that they haven’t thought about. The questions need to change for different ages, of course.

If you are not good at making up questions on the spur of the moment, make up a list when the kids aren’t around, and keep the list in your purse. Or buy a book similar to the one pictured above. Anytime you have to wait, pull out the list or book, and ask a provocative question. Here are a few samples to get the questions flowing.

1.If you got $100 ($1000), how would you spend it?
2. If you could anywhere, where would you like to go on vacation?
3.If you could invent a machine, what would you invent?
4.If you were president, what new law would you make?
5.If you could change yourself, what would you change?
6.If someone in your class is being bullied, what could you do?
7.Would it be a good idea or bad idea to ban all homework?
8.If you are all out of questions, let the kids come up with questions--that everyone answers, including the person asking the question.

What they learn: to formulate questions, to formulate answers, to think through issues and values, how to express their opinions, how to disagree with others, how to debate

Sing Along

Whether you sing along with the radio or a CD, or just sing a cappella, there are many, many benefits to having music in your kid’s lives. You can ham it up, or play it straight. You can sing all together, or take turns singing solos. You can teach them to harmonize, by singing in parts and letting them match your notes. This skill doesn’t happen over night, but over time, they will get the hang of it. You can help them learn to identify artists, or genre of music--see who can identify the artist or name of the song before the radio announcer does. Keep it light, and make it into a game when ever you can, and you may be surprised at how much music they learn in little bits of time here and there. Too soon they will be listening to their own music, so start this early!! There are music cassettes (now maybe DVD’s?) that tell the story of the classical artists as well as sampling some of their music--it’s a story, so kids enjoy listening to them, but it is really a music appreciation course for kids.

Memorizing

Whether your kids need to work on spelling words, or memorizing a poem or Bible verse, the car is a great place to squeeze in little bits of practice. Siblings can check each other if you are the driver. Be sure to give lots of cheers for success and near success. 3 ways to help them memorize--

1.make a recording of it to listen to as you travel in the car
2.Have them try to write it on a white board, then look at a copy and correct mistakes
3.One child quotes from memory while the other reads along to check for accuracy.

20 Questions

This game encourages thinking skills. Simply say, “I am thinking of something, can you guess what it is?” They have to solve the riddle in 20 questions or less. The answers have to be “yes.” or “no,” so encourage them to rephrase the question so it can be answered with “yes” or “no.” You may have to do it for them the first few times until they get the hang of it. To foster camaraderie, see if they can join forces and figure it out together before you get home, with a small prize for all if they do (such as a piece of candy each.)

Whether you are taking your kids to school, around on errands, or on a road trip across the continent, it is a challenge to keep them from going nuts when they have to sit still. Letting them watch a movie might keep them quiet, but think of all that time that could be used for teaching them something or helping them grow their creativity. Maybe some of these ideas will enable you to not plug in that “sedative” quite so often. Some of these ideas take thought or preparation, but which would you rather spend emotional energy on--enduring constant bickering, or spending a few minutes gathering supplies? Of course, providing a snack may be all that is needed to restore calm and tranquility!

Make up Limericks, Silly Poems or Riddles

Kids are much more likely to enjoy poetry if it tickles their funny bones. Check out some library books or memorize a few and quote them in the car, then challenge your kids to come up with their own. Shell Silverstein is one of our favorites.

Story time

Everyone enjoys a good story! Tell about your own childhood, youth, or courtship. Don’t just tell about your successes. If you choose your stories well, you can teach all kinds of values, such as persevering even when you fail or meet difficulties. You can tell stories about grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Kids also particularly enjoy hearing stories about themselves during their earlier years.

Other story ideas might be:

1.An interesting story from the news
2.A story about what happened while they were in school
3.Tell the beginning of a book, then let each kid make up an ending, then read the real ending at home.
4.Re-tell a familiar story, but change it--make Goldilocks visit your home.
5.Make up a story about each child--big accomplishment, adventure, or something funny happens.
6.Let them take turns telling about something that happened to themselves, or kids they know at school
7.Let them tell about a book they read

What they learn: listening skills, increases attention span, and the basics of how to compose a story by example. They learn about family history, or imagination. When they tell the story themselves, they gain experience in composition and public speaking.

Word Play

Teach them an interesting word, use it in a sentence, and get each of them to make up a sentence, too. The more outrageous the sentence, the more fun it is for the kids: “Mortified” means to be embarrassed. “I was mortified when I realized I was wearing pajamas in the grocery store.”

Stump Mom: Hand them a dictionary and see if they can find a word you can’t spell or a word for which you don’t know the meaning. (It’s o.k. to admit that there are some things you don’t know!)

Give a word riddle (definition of a word) and see if they can guess the word.

Rhyming words-let each child choose a word then everyone tries to come up with words that rhyme. Let each of them write the list of words that rhyme with their chosen word to make sure words are not repeated. Longest list wins.

What they learn: They learn vocabulary, dictionary skills, rhyming skills, and gain an attitude that playing with words is fun.

Geography

Hand them each a map and ask them to identify various places--the questions can have one right answer or multiple right answers. Once they get the hang of it, let the kids ask you questions.

Sample questions using a World map:

Name 3 oceans

Name 3 countries in Africa

Name an island country

Sample questions using your Country map

Name 5 lakes

Name 2 rivers

What is the southern most state?

Find the city that your favorite team is in.

Sample questions using a State or province map

What states border our state?

What is the capital of our state?

Sample questions using city map

Guess where we are going

follow the course on map as errands are run

discover a new way to school or church

For a route they are familiar with, have them close their eyes or blindfold them, and let them guess where they are going by sounds alone.

“Where in the World is Carmon Sandiego” is a computer game that will do all this for you.

What they learn: map reading skill, geography vocabulary, curiosity about what things are like outside the borders of their own city, state, or country. Of course, this will work better if you introduce some of these concepts before you get in the car!

Writing

If your kids need practice writing, dictate something for them to write:

1.shopping list
2.to-do list
3.brainstorm ideas for snack, dinner, or things to do for a family fun night,
4.letter to grandma--let them come up with stories to tell grandma--helps them know what makes a good letter, and how to compose a letter
5.Hand them each a blank postcard or sheet of paper, and ask them to draw a picture on one side, and write a short note on the other, or ask each child to tell a part of a story of something the family has done recently
6.fill in a book about “me.”
7.anagram--write their own name down the side of the page, and write words that match their personalities beginning with those letters--check a dictionary for ideas if they have trouble thinking of words.
8.Make up a story together. Fold a sheet of paper in sentence-long sections. Each child takes a turn writing a sentence of the story and folds over their sentence so the next person can’t read it. Then open it up and read a very strange story.

How Do You Do it All?

If your head is swimming with wondering how you do it all, and keep it all straight as you run around doing errands or take the kids home from school, here is a trick to jog your memory. Assign a different activity to each day of the week, and make up a fun name to go with it. If the kids think these activities are fun, they will help you remember each time they climb into the car with you. Here are some samples:

Map Monday

Talk to me Tuesday

Wacky Word Wednesday

Thinking Skills Thursday

Funny Friday

Stories on Saturday

Sing-a-long Sunday

You can spend time planning and preparing, so it will be a great learning experience for your kids. But even if you don’t plan ahead, there are lots of things you can do impromptu if you keep just a few things in the car, like a map, dictionary, and poem book, so when you do remember, you can pull them out and have an instant activity. Some people might prefer to buy a DVD and book set for the kids to sing along with, but other people would prefer to just sing along with the radio. The important thing is to sing together. It does help to have something to jog your memory to remind you, “Oh, yeah, let’s sing together!”

If all this still sounds too complicated to keep up with, then spend a week on each topic rather than a day--read a book one week, take a different way home each day so the kids can follow your path on the map, and sing songs the following week.

?!

When I was a little girl...

Spelling words

thieves

steak

August

collie

where

creativity

volcano

laid

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