How to Unplug Kids in the Car
We were in the car a LOT for this road trip. I didn’t keep track of the hours, but I did keep track of the miles. 11,873 to be exact. Using an average of 60mph that means we spent about 198 hours in the car together. As Rory said, “we got to know each other really well”. I’m not going to pretend like we NEVER used technology. We did. There were days I was driving for 7+ hrs at the end of the trip and we all needed a break. We had family podcasts we listened to (separate post on all our favorites) and our Hulu and Netflix accounts prevented me from having to listen to the same Descendents movie for the 19thtime. With that said, the majority of the time in the car was unplugged. The kids created their own entertainment a lot. They made up stories. Created business ideas. Read. Journaled. Interviewed each other about the trip. When they were tired of all that, we had some items ready to keep them entertained. These were are favorites.
Rubber Neckers
We’ve been fans of playing games in the car like “I, Spy” or the “Alphabet Game” or “I’m Going on a Picnic”. Rubber Neckers is along those same lines but with some fun twists. It seemed to work best when we had another adult with us who could play along with them. I was too focused on driving (and not getting pulled over anymore) to play along. When it was just the two of them I heard a lot of bickering about who scored what. Typical sibling stuff. This kept them busy for quite some time and was a favorite they asked to play over and over again. It has a permanent home in our car now.
Mad Libs
Who doesn’t enjoy Mad Libs? Maybe someone who gets carsick. I was surprised at how much the kids enjoyed these silly stories. An added bonus was that it gives a bit of an English lesson without them realizing it. Adverb. Adjective. Action Verb. Once I got Rory to stop giving me poop as every noun and beautiful for every adjective, we were golden. There are an infinite number of versions.
Portable Coloring
The tried and true method to keep your kids busy – coloring. We didn’t start out the trip with all the supplies. The idea of a bunch of crayons or pencils rolling around in the backseat was more than I wanted to handle. GG and Poppi to the rescue. They sent Josh out to us with two colored pencil rolls that fit perfectly on the back of the headrests. I’m not sure that was the intended application, but it worked perfectly. We got quite a few people who saw peeks of the rolls and stopped to ask us where to get one for their kids while we traveled.
Our Moments Cards
The Our Moments Famly was a gift from a friend before we left. I had no clue how awesome it was going to be. It caught me a bit off guard when we first started using them. I was driving and Rory piped up with “Mommy, what worries you the most.” Whoa! The questions were easy for the kids to understand, but deep enough for the adults to connect. Each card has a conversation starter on it in the form of a question. We use the Family Edition but there are several versions. The kids seemed to really enjoy being able to ask us important questions. I was shocked at some of the responses they gave me. This is a great way to direct conversations or get at important family discussions.
GOtrio Travel Game
This is the travel version of Otrio. I ran across it at Target when it was on sale for $5. Having never played the original version before, I had no clue what it was. But for that price, I added it to our collection of car activities. This quickly became our go-to family game. We use it at restaurants, the cabin, in the car. If you’ve never played, it is essentially a much more complex version of Tic-Tac-Toe. There are three ring sizes (a peg/small circle, a med circle, and a large circle) and three colors (red, blue, green). The goal is to get your color in a row but you can do it three ways to win. It takes a lot of thinking and strategy. It’s like a constantly changing brain teaser. Highly recommend, even when it isn’t on sale.
