Car Games

I know that there are many electronic ways to entertain children in the car.  These are great if you want a quiet trip without much interaction.  But in my mind they are a huge waste of opportunity!  How long is your trip?  We made many cross country trips while my children were little. Each could take 18 to 30 hours of driving time.  That's a lot of time where you have your children in very close proximity.  What an opportunity to build relationship, have deep conversations or simply have fun as a family?  Here are a few of the car games we enjoyed:

"Horsey, Horsey" 

As far as I know this game was made up by our cousins and embellished to the point of crazy by our family.  It started with just counting the horses you saw.  Each time you saw a horse you would say, "horsey" for every horse that you saw and keep a score of how many you found in a day.  If you yelled "horsey" and it turned out to be a cow, you would lose one point.  We often traveled through areas where you could see many wild creatures as well as horses so we added any wild animals we saw and created a score system that was based on the rarity of the animal.  

Antelope = 5

Deer = 10

Elk = 15

Eagles = 35

Bear = 50

Fox = 35
Wild Turkey =35
Be sure and add your own discoveries here :)

Instead of competing as individuals we set a goal for the trip like 1000 points and then worked to together to reach that goal.  

"Road Pizza"

This is a variation of "Horsey, Horsey"  It might seem a bit morbid but one trip was dedicated to counting and setting up a score system for what didn't make it across the road.  Sometimes it might take a bit of the bizarre to get your child'a attention ;)  It turned out to be an educational experience since we were traversing across an area where we weren't familiar with the wildlife.  It was in the spring when wildlife is just coming out of hibernation (which is the best time to look for road pizza ugh!) And we learned a lot about muskrats. :)

"The Alphabet Game"

We started with the letter 'A'.  One person in the car would look for something outside that all could see that started with the letter 'A'.  Maybe they saw and Antenna.  Then the next person would look for something that started with the letter 'B' and so on.  We gave a lot of grace for letters like 'X' or 'Q'

"The Spelling Game"

This is the same as the letter game but as my kids grew older they had to be able to correctly spell the thing that started with the letter they had.  Like 'H', there's a hill.  H-I-L-L, hill.  And so on. 

"Baseball"

We had a friend who taught us the game "baseball".  If you are a baseball fan there is a lot you can do to embellish this game.  Ours was pretty simple.  Every regular car was an out a pickup truck was a single, a car with a trailer was a double and a big 18 wheel truck was a home run.  Everyone had a chance at bat and we would count their score based on how many runs made it home before they had three outs. 

"Front seat fishing"

This was something my mother invented when I was young.  It required a small pole and a string with a magnet tied to the end and some paperclips.  We used all kinds of things as "fish" sometimes it was the way we got a snack.  You can put just about anything in a small envelope like crackers or candy.  Fish crackers of course are the most logical choice right?  Just attach a paperclip to your "fish and away you go.  You can also use fish shaped pieces of construction paper with a paper clip on it's nose and different numbers written on each one.  When you catch a fish with a number on it that is your score. After catching all the fish, add up the numbers on your fish to see who wins. Or just munch down on your fish crackers and have fun!

"Car Wars!"

Give each child a mirror that is big enough that they can use it to see out the back window.  cut small strips of black tape to make crosshairs in the center of the mirror.  The object is to find any red cars (you can decide what cars are the enemy) and try to get those cars in the center of the crosshairs and blast away.  

"Water Pistols"

Wait, what?  Water pistols in the car?  Well, there were a few extenuating circumstances that made this seem like a good idea.  First we were in "Desert Center" California.  And as the name implies it is in the center of the Colorado Desert in southern California.  It was super hot that day and the air conditioning in our car decided to quit.  Right there in Desert Center!  My solution was to stop at a store and buy water pistols.  We had a few rules... like you can't startle the driver with a shot of cold water, you can't aim for the face, that kind of thing, but between the kids it was a free for all.  After a while no one was complaining about the heat.  It was a lot of fun and made a miserable experience a memorable one.  There was no fear of water damage.  In temperatures well over 100F, in the dry heat of the desert water didn't last long.

I think we played about as many games as there were trips.  But these were among the most fun.  I'd love to hear of your suggestions.  What do you do to entertain your kids on a road trip without electronics?