Travel Games!

We're back from a fun-filled 4 day vacation to Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park! I definitely recommend this park if you are looking for a place to camp with kids. They had so many activities scheduled daily: Train rides, snack bingo, coloring contest, visits with Yogi Bear and his friends, swimming, miniature golf, etc. My girls didn't want to leave to come back home! Anyways, back to the topic at hand: Travel Games! We did a few of our favorite games while traveling in the car, but we also tried out a few new ones!

License Plate Games

1. Oldy, but Goody! Recommend this for children who can read- Find all of the different states on the license plates while the cars drive by.

2. Number Game: This was new game that we played. This is appropriate for young children as long as they can identify numbers. As the cars drive by, you look for the numbers 1 to 9 in order. You can't get a three until you see the number two. This actually takes longer than you would think to find all of the numbers, but a fun family team game! (The Everything Book by Eleanor Graham Vance)

Alphabet Games

1. A to Z: Find the letters in the alphabet on signs, etc. as driving! Must be in order like the number game. I often play this even if driving short distances to practice letter recognition. Great for preschoolers and up!

2. Alphabet Sentences: This game was little bit harder for our girls, so I recommend it for older children, but my husband and I enjoyed playing it! Using the letter A, the first person makes up a sentence that contains at least 5 A words, the next person makes up a sentence with 5 B words, and so on. Example: Bill buys a blue bat and a ball.
(The Everything Book by Eleanor Graham Vance)

3. Animal Alphabet: My girls like to think of different animals that begin with each letter. A is for Antelope, B is for Bear, C is for chameleon, etc. Good for sound and animal recognition.

My girls also enjoy the video animal alphabet: LEARNING YOUR ABC'S WITH ANIMALS from Time Life Kids . It isn't a video that they request often, but I think they enjoy seeing video of the different animals. Features armadillos to gibbons from Africa. Something to checkout at your local library!

MAD LIBS

This was a lot of fun and the girls were actually able to do it at 4 and 6 years old! I just had to remind them what the different words meant, for example: Adjective: describing word and I would give examples: silly, messy, colorful;
Verb: an action word- running, singing, Plural Noun- a thing that ends in S, cars, trees. You get the idea! We purchased Mad Libs on the Road by Roger Price & Leonard Stern for this trip. They were pretty funny.

Games that are fun for everyone, encourage creative thinking, and practice skills are my favorite! If you will be traveling soon, I hope that you will try out some of the above ideas and let me know what you think!!