Road Trip: Car Games

Kids love games and it's amazing how the games we played as kids are now being played by our own kids. The games just keep getting passed down from generation to generation by virtue of experience. The car games our parents taught us on long car rides are now being taught to the next generation of kids … and the cycle continues.

This article is all about travel games for the car—filling those hours in the car while you travel with the kids, on vacation, to Grandma's, wherever you need to go. Stave off the inevitable “Are we there yet?” with one of these memorable travel games for kids.

Things You May Need in the Car

For some car games you will need to have some tools on hand to make game-playing easier. Here are just some of the things you'll need:

• Pen
• Pencil
• Pencil sharpener
• Paper
• Crayons
• Coloring books
• Tray table (please make sure this is safe, first)
• Back seat storage
• Map

Let's Go!

It would not be possible to take long trips with children without the use of games such as the ones discussed here. Nowadays, kids have electronic hand-held games, and cars come equipped with TVs and VCRs, but every so often the kids will even get bored of these things and start to get fidgety and whiney.

Little kids will do anything to get their parents' attention and, frankly, all the TVs and videos in the world will not keep them happy for the next few hundred miles. It would be nice if the kids could just get into a good book and not want to put it down; this might happen if your kids are old enough to read—but it's that word “might” that could cause you big problems down the road if you don't have a plan B.

When the books are put away, the attention spans wane, the batteries wear out, and the videos become repetitive, it's time to pull out the good old standbys. Anyone born before 1985 knows these games very well because we had to play them in the car. The only other electronic gadgets we had to distract ourselves with were portable cassette players or radios—if we were lucky enough to have owned them.

When you decide to take family car rides, you're taking your kids away from their friends, their bedrooms, and their regular playgrounds. It means that they are out of their element—and we all know that most kids require consistent stimulation or boredom sets in very quickly. So, if you're planning a long trip, you should also plan to bring along many forms of entertainment—the best of which are the games that don't require batteries. They are the games that were made up out of moments of desperation by parents and teachers—games that keep the peace for as long as everyone can keep playing. You'll want to know a few of these games because even they will lose their interest from hour to hour.

Well, I can't guarantee these games will be the cure-all, but the more games you know the more chances you will have of hour-free fidgetiness, crankiness, and general chaos. As the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts say: “Be Prepared.” It's your best defense!

The history of these “car games” is virtually unknown. They are probably as ancient as procreation itself. They have been played in various ways, in various countries, in multitudes of languages for ages. There was a time, before kids had so much electronic stimuli, that parents had to be more interactive with the kids just to manage their own levels of chaos. Now, rather than let the kids zone out, this is a great opportunity to work with them—let them use their minds, their imaginations, and their creativity, rather than just passively absorb all that information technology.

Little kids will be thrilled to get your undivided attention, but you might have a bigger struggle with the teenagers. Rather than resort to plug-pulling to get them to zone in, maybe they'll see the younger kids having so much fun that they'll tune in for a few minutes to see what all the laughing is about. Their level of interest will depend on the level of the game, however. Maybe the games for little kids will spark some of their own memories and they'll want to teach their younger siblings a thing or two.

The I Spy Games

I Spy is one of the first car games your kids will probably ever learn. It's the kind of game you start playing with kids long before the first car trip. You may have played it for the first time with your little one in the doctor's office—when you were waiting … and waiting … for your name to be called. It might be one of the first games that pops into your head to keep your child from getting bored. It's a great game to play one-on-one or in a group.

I Spy with One Child

If you're playing with one child, you start by saying “I spy with my little eye, something that is …” and fill in with a color. The child is then required to guess what it is you're looking at. You can pick any color, of course. It's a great way to help your child build an understanding of colors.

When the child guesses the object, it is then the child's turn to “spy” something. You keep going back and forth, alternating turns.

If the child is a little bit older, you can use letters. “I spy with my little eye, something starting with the letter B.” If the child knows some basic reading skills, you can easily play this game with him or her.

If one of you never guesses the object and “gives up,” the person who did the spying gets to take another turn.

License Plate Bingo

This game works best in traffic jams because you can get a good, long look at the license plates. For License Plate Bingo you'll need a pen and paper. Give each child a piece of paper and a pen. The kids should write the letters of the alphabet on the piece of paper. They then need to look out the window and see what letters of the alphabet they can spot on the license plates of other cars. The kids cross off each letter on their piece of paper as they see that letter on a license plate. The object of the game is to cross off all the letters and shout “Bingo” by the time the traffic starts moving again.

To liven things up a little, you might want to give the kids different windows, on different sides of the car, to ensure that they are looking at different license plates.

To liven things up even more, tell the kids that they have to find the letters in alphabetical order. In other words, they can't just cross off the letters in any old order. You might want to resort to this if the cars haven't moved and you need a round two!

You can try playing License Plate Bingo without paper and pencil also. Just have the kids shout out the letters in alphabetical order as they see them. You can do the same thing with billboards along the highway. Try reverse alphabetical order for a change of pace. Have the kids start with the letter “z” and go backward to “a.”

What If

All you need for What If is some imagination and maybe a map. Some of the best games you'll ever play with your kids are games that involve creativity and imagination.

In this game, you pose a “what if” scenario to your child and he or she has to describe the conditions and possibilities.

For example: Ask your child, “What if the car trip we're taking was actually in a covered wagon?” The questions the child should consider answering are things like:

• How long would the trip take?
• How many times would you have to stop to feed and water the horses?
• What would you eat?
• How much water would you need to bring?

You can look at the map with the child and try to imagine what the country looked like with single lane dirt roads. What kind of obstacles would you encounter on these roads?

A map is an excellent prop for this game. Use some of your own historical knowledge to liven up the discussion. If you have time before the trip, study up on the history a little bit and offer information to the children to liven up their imaginations and knowledge that much more. You can even bring along a couple of books on the topic. If someone else is driving, you can always look at the pictures in the book with the child and talk about what life in the “olden days” was like. If you are the only one driving, brush up on the geography before the trip with the kids, circle highlights on the map, and have the kids spot them as you continue the journey.

You can also set up an even more imaginative scenario: What would the trip be like if you did it a thousand years from now? Would you be traveling to other planets? What kind of vehicle would you be traveling in? What kind of fuel would it take? What would you be eating and drinking? What obstacles could you encounter? Kids will love this game. There's no history lesson to teach, just a lot of creative energy to indulge.

Camping Trip

Camping Trip is a game my friends and I used to play when we couldn't sleep at night. It can be a memory or guessing game, and for some reason, stretching my memory always made me sleepy.

There are a couple ways to play the game. You can play it as strictly a memory game or you can play so that the other players have to guess the rules of play as you go along:

The first person starts off by saying:

“I'm going on a camping trip and I'm going to bring …”

At this point the person says something he or she would want to bring on the camping trip. Let's say it's a “toothbrush.” The next person would then say:

“I'm going on a camping trip and I'm going to bring a toothbrush and …” This person would then have to add something else that they would bring on the trip. But this time, the object must start with the last letter of the pervious object. In the case of “toothbrush,” the last letter is “h,” so the person would have to think of an object that starts with an “h.” Let's say the person chooses “horse.”

The third person would then have to say, “I'm going on a camping trip and I'm going to bring a toothbrush, a horse, and an electric guitar.” The game continues until someone forgets an object on the list. That person is out and the game continues until there is only one person left.

You can simplify this version of the game by taking away the memory element. The children don't have to repeat the other objects on the list; they just have to add another item to the list that starts with the last letter of the previous item.

Alphabetical Version

You can also play Camping Trip using objects in alphabetical order. For example: “I'm going on a camping trip and I'm going to bring an asteroid.” Then “I'm going on a camping trip and I'm going to bring an asteroid, and a baseball ….”

The game continues the same way until there's only one person left who didn't forget an item on the list.

Who Am I?

When I was a kid, we called “Who Am I?” 20 Questions. One person thinks of something—person, place, or thing—and asks, “Who am I?” To figure it out, the other players have to ask questions like:

• Are you an animal?
• Are you blue?
• Do you swim in the ocean?

The person answering should only give “yes” or “no” answers to make the game a little trickier. With little kids, you might want to allow full answers so they don't get too frustrated with the game.

What's Next?

If you're on a really long car ride and you've exhausted all other games, here are some games for the desperate parent or child.

Thumb Wrestling

When all else fails, don't give up. Do not pull your hair out or resort to threats—there's always the good old thumb wrestle.

Tell the kids to put out their hands. Each kid puts out his or her right hand (or you can have each child put out his or her left hand) as though to shake hands. Instead of locking hands, though, they make their fingers into a “c” shape and lock fingers. Each child's thumb should be resting on the top of the “handshake.” You move the thumbs back and forth over each other saying “one, two, three” and let the wrestling begin.

Another way to begin the game is for the kids to chant: “One, two, three, four—we will have a thumb war; five, six, seven, eight—try to keep your thumb straight.” Then the wrestling begins.

The object is to use your thumbs in an effort to trap the other person's thumb—meaning that one person should be pressing down on the other person's thumb so that that person can't lift their thumb. The “challenge” of the game is that you cannot unclasp your fingers to maneuver your thumbs, and you cannot move your whole hand—only the thumb.

Kids are very funny people. I hear they've made up a variation since my thumb wrestling days. It's called “Snake in the Grass.” It's basically just a way to cheat. One person uses their index finger to trap the thumb saying it's a snake in the grass.

The Purse Game

This is the ultimate game of desperation. A mom can play with the kids by emptying her purse and letting the kids go through her stuff. With little kids, you have to be careful that they don't get their hands on anything they shouldn't! You can have the kids categorize the objects they see. They can group together things that are round or square. Or they can group together things that are made of paper. You can even have them categorize things that are of a certain color. This game will work with kids around the ages of four through six.

I wish my mom had played that game with us. She always carried such a huge purse full of interesting stuff. Dads may not be able to play this game with the kids unless they have a mighty interesting wallet or briefcase.