Shine Fm Blog

Road Trip!

When we took our kids last week on our family vacation, kids can get really bored quickly..here are some tips that may make your trip more enjoyable..

A road trip with the kids can be a good bonding experience for the whole family, but if the kids get bored your vacation can quickly become a trip you’ll want to forget. Keeping the kids occupied while traveling long distances is important if you want to have a peaceful trip, especially for younger children who don’t have ipods and earphones yet. Planning ahead is essential if you want to keep everyone happy; here are ten suggestions that can keep your kids busy while traveling in the car on a road trip.

1. Road Bingo This is a game that children of all ages can play. For each child, you’ll need a metal lunch kit or metal box with a lid and a package of small round or square magnets. Make bingo cards a little smaller than the box from card stock paper, drawing lines to divide the cards into squares. For small children, nine squares would probably be sufficient; for older kids you can make 20-30 squares. Decide what you want to put on the cards; the kids will be looking for the objects you have on the cards as you drive along on your trip. For instance, for smaller kids you could use stickers or draw a tree, a cow, a stop sign, a police car, etc. For older kids, you can make the things they have to look for a little more difficult, especially if you know what you’ll be seeing along the way. For instance, you could put a mountain on a toddler’s card and a fir tree on the card for older kids. The kids can put their card on the top of the box and put a magnet on each object on the card as it is spotted. The magnets keep the cards attached to the box; they work much better than bingo chips in the car since they don’t fall off. Take a bag of small prizes that your kids would like and reward the winners. Make several cards for each child, and the game can be played over and over as you travel.

2. Personal Backpacks Most kids like to keep their possessions separated from those of others. Let each of your children take a backpack with things to keep him occupied. For smaller children, coloring books and crayons, small toys, and snacks would be good choices.

3. Scavenger Hunt Scavenger hunts are fun for all ages, and even some parents can become very competitive playing this game. If you have two children and two parents, you could match up a child with each parent.

4. Postcard Albums If you’re going on a long road trip and will be passing through many towns, a postcard album can be fun for kids. Get each of them a photo album that holds 4”x 6” photos, and standard postcards will fit in the slots

5. Photo Themes If your kids are shutterbugs, taking photos will be a fun part of the trip. Digital cameras are excellent tools for remembering your trip, and inexpensive ones can be purchased for smaller kids before the trip.

6. License Plate Game Just about everyone has played the license plate game, where you look for plates from all the different provinces.

7. Songs Sing-alongs in the car are an old tradition, of course, and one that most smaller children like. For Teenagers and older children, you can adapt the sing-along by making a CD before you leave. Select songs that fit the towns you’ll be traveling through

Our kids also watched their favorite movies on the portable DVD player as well..and another idea is to take pics when you make your stops, great memories of where you where!