Road trips are in the plans for our summer. How about yours? My least favorite question to hear from the back seats is the infamous, “Are we there yet?”. Busy young minds sometimes need encouragement to look up and to gaze at the changing landscape outside of the car. With three children ranging from 5-10, we have a minivan full of various interests and developmental levels.
I have happy memories of bingo travel games (remember those with the transparent sliding doors) so I decided our children needed travel games of their own. For my older set, we put together a scavenger hunt, and for my son, an emergent reader, a bingo game of symbols and sites.
DRIVE bingo follows the traditional game with graphics you might see on a day of errands or a road trip (use as needed!). We always pack a lap desk or clipboard in the car for drawing and paper activities so my son was ready to get to work when he saw this board! Some symbols like the water tower or the number sign might need explanation but they will also keep little ones spidey eyes attuned to some new discoveries.
My two older daughters, 8 and 10, want to be challenged. The Road Trip Scavenger Hunt is right up their alley. If you’re headed out on a longer journey, you could tape this to an interior window (making sure it doesn’t obstruct the driver’s view) and work on it little by little. This works well for us since we tend not to travel light, and a single piece of paper can get easily lost in the books, ipods, stuffed animals, etc.
I’ll admit that I had a lot of fun thinking of what might stump them. 🙂 You could use these as a competition to see who can find all of these items first. For our family, competition and long drives do not go well together so we use these more as a group project!
Searching for a lost shoe on the side of the road and sparking conversations about what counts as outdoor art is a fun way to pass the time, and even get to know each other a bit better. Some of these you might even find in your own car!
Enjoy the summer travels; we’re going to do our best to do the same! Any tips on helping your children enjoy road trips?
xoxo, MJ
I hope you enjoyed our guest post today from M.J. at Pars Caeli today. MJ will be joining us this summer to share her beautiful printables and knowledge with us! I am so lucky to call her one of my personal friends and to get to share her talent with you this summer! Please visit her blog for incredible ideas this summer to entertain your kiddos- she is one fun mama!! You won’t be disappointed! xoxo
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