From the magical childhood newsletter:
Stuck in a car together?
Magical Mama Amy asked for suggestions on making car trips more fun. Here's some activities and ideas that work for us.
Silly counting: Daryl dreamed this one up. Have your child slowly count. As she is counting, start asking questions to get funny answers. For instance... 1, 2, 3, "How many noses do you have?" ...4 "You have 4 noses?!" 5, 6... "How old is your mother?" 7... "7 years old? Wow she's young!" 8, 9, 10... "How many cats can you fit in your mouth?" 10.... This makes little ones howl with laughter if you do it silly enough.
Balance things on your head. Give the kids something like a beanie baby to balance on their heads and challenge them to see how long they can hold it there. Our girls sat for an amazing amount of time quietly concentrating on doing this.
Get books on tape. Your library carries oodles of these, from storybooks read aloud to little song and rhyme collections. They're fantastic.
Play children's music. Victoria says it's important that children sing it too. No matter how cool adults are, she always prefers to sing along with other kids.
If you're brave enough, give them washable window markers (Crayola makes some) and a tissue, and let them decorate their windows as they ride.
Bring a ziplock bag of colorform shapes. These are the little peel and stick people, pets, shapes, etc. They cling to windows so kids can create scene after scene.
Lend the kids a digital camera and ask them to take pictures as you go. This is a huge treat for our kids during trips and some of the photos have been really wonderful.
Put older kids in charge of keeping "the log." We've had this tradition on trips since before we had children. We keep track of times, mileage, sights seen, weather, stops, you name it. The goofy entries make us laugh years later.
Each night, read the day's log together.
Make up a treasure hunt list. Write down 20 things to see on the trip and have the child cross them out as he spots them. Younger kids can do this with picture lists. Examples of things to list-- tractor, semi truck, billboard with a person on it, motorcycle, green house, dog, deer crossing sign, mailbox...
Bring paper and crayons so the kids can do art. A cookie sheet makes a good lap tray since crayons can't roll off.
Print out activity pages from online and keep them in a folder just for car trips.
Bring the magna doodle
Sing songs together.
This site has printable bingo cards, games, coloring pages, you name it:
http://www.momsminivan.com/
And this site goes with the book Carschooling. You can sign up for a newsletter, mailing lists, etc.
http://www.carschooling.com/
