Fun ways to entertain your kids on the road
“Are we there yet?!” – Is a question no parent wants to hear when they’ve just left home for a family road trip. If you’re dreading the thought of spending hours on the road with bored children, these ideas will help keep them entertained so you can kick back and start enjoying your holiday as soon as you’re all buckled up!
Car-ride karaoke
If you’re a fan of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke sessions or if you miss the silliness of the Idols Wooden Mic moments, why not create the hilarious magic in your own car? Allow younger kids to choose their favourite song to sing, but make it more challenging for the older ones by asking them to sing whichever song comes on next whether they know it or not (a quick Google search will share the lyrics).
Old-school roadtrip games
Who doesn’t love a round of ‘I Spy with My Little Eye’?! It’s a classic game for a reason – it allows for many minutes of fun and encourages little ones to be creative. There’s also Counting Cars, where each person is given a colour and is tasked with seeing how many cars in their colour they can find within a specified distance or time frame. You could also play a game that encourages good memory – when you’re at a toll gate or traffic light, focus on the numberplate in front of you and see which member of the family is able to memorise it for the longest period.
Sweet or Sour is also a great way to keep the whole family laughing out loud. Here’s how to play it:
Educational screentime
Rather than allowing your little one to watch back-to-back episodes of Paw Patrol, why not introduce them to the area you’ll be visiting? You can choose an age-appropriate programme – an animated video about the ocean for toddlers or documentaries for the tweens. Not only will they learn something new, they’ll also be more excited about the destination and all its sightseeing hotspots when you arrive.
Prepare conversation cards
Make use of the time on the road to bond as a family. Before you leave, cut a sheet of cardboard into small blocks and, on each block, write down a question that you could ask one of your family members on the road trip.
To make it more fun, allow each member of the family to come up with two or three questions. Then, place all the cards in a bag and when you’re on your way, allow each person to take a card from the bag. They can then choose which family member should answer the question.
Here are some ideas for questions:
Play an audio book
Pack their headphones, set the volume to a level appropriate for your child’s age, and allow them to get lost in storytelling. Steer clear of printed story books as these may cause motion sickness – instead, give them an interactive musical book that relies mostly on associating pictures with their matching sounds.
Words by: Shani Tsai
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