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Car Games for Kids
Games to Keep Children Occupied While on the Road By Carma Haley Shoemaker
As you may know, traveling with children can be stressful. It's hard to keep little ones occupied when they're strapped into one place for longer than 10 minutes. But there are ways to keep your children entertained on long car trips. Next time you're out on the open road, open your mind to a few of these car games all of which stress important learning skills as well as providing you and your kids with a welcome diversion.
All you need is a sheet of paper to keep score, one person to be scorekeeper and a writing utensil. Each player chooses a color. Each player's name and chosen color is then written down on the score card by the score keeper, who will announce when there is a winner.
To Play the Game:
Each player announces each semi truck on the road that is his chosen color. One mark, or point, is given for each semi the person identifies as his color. The game can be played until one person reaches a certain number of points. Most people play Semi Search until one person reaches 50 points, but a longer game can be played for older children.
Benefits:
Semi Search helps children identify colors and also helps them develop and maintain their attention level. The six most common semi colors are white, black, green, red, yellow and blue.
Bingo cards will need to be made prior to the trip, but only take a few minutes to make. Be sure to make several sets to allow for more then one game ofTraveling Bingo to be played, especially if traveling a long distance.
To make the Bingo cards, draw five columns of five boxes centered on the paper. You can use colored or white paper, whichever is more convenient. Over the top of each column, one letter per column, print the letters B-I-N-G-O. Next, draw or place stickers of various items that may be encountered along the trip. Some popular suggestions are cows, tractors, umbrellas, dogs, horses, sheep, barns, lawn furniture, radio or television towers, different colors and types of cars (such as a red truck or blue minivan), police cars, ambulances or fire trucks. You want the children, and/or adults, playing to have to search for the objects.