Category — Travel Car Games

Some people may have the impression that my road trips are always perfect…. that we go singing down the road in perfect harmony, never fighting, never getting bored, arriving on time and never getting lost. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m as normal as the rest of you.

Even my backseat looks like the floor of a teenager’s bedroom at the end of a long trip. Here’s a photo as proof.

I have also posted a few random crazy moments that occured in the back seat of our minivan this summer….

I overheard this conversation between my darling daughters (aka “DD”s) during a game of Battleship on the road:

DD1: Permission to speak freely, Captain?

DD2: Permission granted…

DD1: You are a dork! (laughter galore)

Overheard game of Mad Libs …

body part: Uvula

place: Oscar’s belly button! (Oscar is our dog)

noun: vomit

adjective: vomit-like

adverb: vomitly!

Vomitly? You gotta give ‘em points for creativity anyway. Makes me wonder how they would do at Scrabble.

I don’t sweat any of it though. Payback will come someday when they’ll be driving, and I’ll be in the backseat with THEIR kids, inspired to write all kinds of stories titled, “Traveling with Kids, or Why Grandma Drinks Wild Turkey“.

Full circle.

Get your kids wired on your next road trip! This is an activity that will keep them busy for hours.

All you need are some pipe cleaners, a nail clipper (for trimming the pipe cleaners to different lengths), and some creativity. A pencil or pen might also come in handy to create coiled sections by wrapping the pipe cleaners around it.

For more photos and ideas, check out the full article: Pipe Cleaner Crafts and Creatures

Here’s a fast and quick easy car game for the road. It’s drink cup battleship.

This has been posted on the Big Kids Car Activities page and on it’s own page for Drink Cup Battleship.

Playing cards is one of my kids’ favorite things to do when we are on the road, or waiting at our airport gate for our flight to board. I’ve uploaded some printable instructions to MomsMinivan.com with the instructions for playing some fun easy card games when you are on the road or in airports.

So, if you’ve forgotten the details of how to play Old Maid or Crazy Eights, here’s your chance to brush up. As a mom, the funnest part for me is watching one of my kids try to keep a “Poker face” when he/she has just drawn the Old Maid from someone’s hand!

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In honor of Earth Day, here is a car travel game invented by my 15 year old Cousin Ben while he was on a long road trip through California.

The Green Game:
When driving through towns and cities, look for a hybrid vehicle, such as the Toyota Prius. Then count to 45. Within 45 seconds you will see another one if you are in an environmentally friendly area. Play this to measure which towns are “green”.

Momsminivan.com now has Battleship! Download these printable pages for your next road trip and then listen for the classic line from your backseat, “You sank my battleship!”

Using these battleship grids, kids take turns firing upon their opponent until they sink all of his ships. It’s normally a two-player game for kids who are old enough to read numbers and letters, but you can also play in teams. This is a GREAT game for the car — a road trip version of this game of war ships!

I also posted a javascript version of Battleship online so you can practice playing against the computer to get yourself warmed up for battle!

See the entire article and printable pages at http://www.momsminivan.com/battleship.html

After spending a day on the lake last summer pretending to be pirates, I was inspired to write an article about playing pirates on the road.

The time will pass quickly if you and your crew carry out your travels with pirate personas. Use your creativity and make every aspect of the trip pirate related. Speak like pirates. Sing pirate songs. Tell pirate jokes. Watch pirate movies. Wear pirate garb. Make pirate accessories. Basically, make like Roger and have a jolly good time in the car!

See the full article: “Pirates of the Caravan” for a bounty of ideas to get you started. If you know any good pirate jokes, please post them here and I’ll add them to the article!

Prepare this one ahead of time. Use a large soda bottle or a large clean peanut butter jar. Fill it no more than 2/3 full with uncooked rice or birdseed. Then put in about 20-25 small objects (for example: safety pin, plastic bugs, button, M&M;, nut, bolt, paper clip, penny, bead, piece of macaroni, tiny lego, and other misc. toy pieces or stuff that is probably rolling around in your kitchen junk drawer.) Keep a count of the items and write down the number of items on the outside of the bottle, or make a list of the items. Put the lid on tight (you may even want to superglue it shut).

Let the kids take turns rolling the bottle around in their hands until they find them all. You can also make more than one treasure bottle so kids don’t have to take turns – put different items in different bottles. Kids of all ages love this game.

This activity is now included on the Car Games for Big Kids and the Toddler page!

I have updated the article on How to “How to Make a Cootie Catcher“! Most kids really enjoy making these from scratch; however, I’ve had a few requests for a pre-fab version, so I have answered the call. My own children are often the test subjects for new material at the website, and I’m happy to report that they were very pleased with my printable cootie catcher creation.

They especially liked that I offer two versions. One is all inclusive and complete. The other version has the “fortunes” areas left blank so you can fill in your own fortunes. Please enjoy these PDF files which are now part of the cootie catcher article, and also posted on the Printable Car Games page with all the other printable goodies.

Printable cootie catcher (pdf file) (complete with fortunes)
Blank cootie catcher (pdf file) (write your own fortunes)
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