Activities for the car!

We spend a lot of time in the car.  A lot.  Since we live in no-where-ville we have resorted to turning a DVD on for the kids and it is usually a peaceful ride to wherever we are going.  However, when we are on trips that take over an hour to get to…they get bored pretty fast.  Knowing that we would be in the car for a total of 18+ hours for our family vacation, I called in help from my mom and we came up with some fun car activities for the kids.  So if you have any upcoming long car rides…or if your kids hate the car, maybe you will find a few of these useful.  

      
    1.   Scavenger hunt

Prepare a list of things that you might see along the way and call off the items.  Keep a tally of who finds the most items.  My oldest loved this…and so did my husband and I.  The younger kids could find the easier things like cows and certain colors of cars, but some of the things were harder.  Things should be somewhat easy for what type of terrain you are traveling.  The hardest thing on the list for us was a dog and a green car.  We ran out of items, so I had to make a second list.  It is amazing how much time you kill by hunting for things.

Some example of items:  bridge, yellow flower, chair, dog, cow, person wearing a hat, gas station, sign with a word that starts with “whatever letter”, the state’s name, pond…etc.      

 2.  Sticker books

My kids LOVE stickers.  My mom gathered up some older random stickers and a few little notepads and the kids had a great time filling up their sticker books.  Great time killer!  Post-it notes would be fun too if you didn’t have stick. 
  
   3.  Pipe Cleaners

      Yes you read that right.  Hand the kids random colors and call off items that they can make...like flowers or a dog.   If you have younger kids, cute out shapes of felt, cut a little slit in the middle of each felt piece and they can thread the shapes through the pipe cleaner.

         4.  "I feel it" game.

      Put a whole bunch of random little items in a dark bag.  Make a master list of the items.  Call of an item and have the kids take turns feeling for that item.  We actually have a game where the items are pictured on the card, but you could make your own game.  The kids loved it!

         5.  Coloring

      My girls could color for hours.  Easton colors for maybe 5 minutes.  I made them each a little baggy for crayons and they picked out a coloring book at the store.  

       These are just a few of the activities we did....I brought various other toys like legos, mini-Disney toys, and a few etch-a-sketches.  What type of things do your kids like to do in the car?  I am always looking for new ideas!

Not keeping an eye on the kids in the car...could turn out like this...this is Jocelyn (at age 3) having fun with a blue glue stick when she was on a road trip with my parents at the Grand Canyon.