let's start a list of great car games/activities!

[Spinning]

We are planning on driving this year. First time with 2 kids, 4 & 6
We are planning on getting a TV/VCR combo but would like other activities while in the car!
Favorite car game:
I Spy
knock knock jokes

activities:
So far I have gotten:
on sale at TDS learn to draw Pooh and Mickey (came with markers, paper, tracing paper)
felt marker boards. Great for even the little ones if they color on the felt it won't show
card games, not sure how this will work
magnetic tic tac toe (disney)
coloring books
bubbles


snacks: Different from the usual car snacks! Fun ones!
disney lolly pops
the spin pops
pop rocks and other exploding candy!

Any other ideas? I just started we are planning to go in March! So bring on the ideas!

 

[Ellen aka Snow White]

One of my kids all time favorites is homemade silly putty. I mix liquid starch and glue and store in zip lock bags. I bought lap pads from K-mart and they have fun for hours.

We also played a license plate game - I found a simple US map and copied it. They color in a state whenever they "found" a license plate from that state. Helped with geography.

of course mom and dad's favorite is the quiet game.

 

[SandraC]

Excellent thread!

(1) dd's newest fav car game is bascially 20 questions. She'll start by picking a subject, lately her fav subjects is geography, so she thinks of a place/structure, like any city or something like the Great Wall of China. Then we have to ask YES / NO answered questions. She's learning a great deal without really thinking about it. We also do this using animals and Disney characters.
(2) ESP game. Have a plain deck (or buy a Disney Deck of card, $4.00 at Zellers) and guess the next card. One person guesses, the other person divides the deck into right and wrong piles. The winner has the most right guesses. You can make it as simple as red or black cards.
(3) Not a game, but PIPECLEANERS are a great car thing. dd makes all sorts of neat things and it's very very very quiet!

GOOD LUCK!

 

[Whitegloves]

Legos are always a good idea, along with a lap tray to put them on. =0)

 

[Spinning]

OOOOH ! I love the idea of those table pillow things will have to get them! I also picked up a few cheap hand held games too.
Keep the ideas coming!

 

[colleen mcmaster]

We get each of our kids (3 and 5) a big notebook and then give them ziploc bags full of different stickers. For some reason they are happy to spend hours putting stickers all over the pages. I know it doesn't sound exciting but it's quiet and they love it. We also take their notebooks to restaurants so they have something to do there, too. Of course we always have crayons so they can draw, practice writing etc. With their notebooks they can also play tic tac toe, hangman and that dot game where you make rows of dots and draw one line at a time and when a box is made you put your initial in it. I have no idea what this is called but we played it when we were kids. Hope you know what I'm talking about because it's another great, quiet game. Great thread by the way!!

 

[horseshowmom]

This isn't a game or activity, but when the kids were small, we always had the divided section thingys (sort of like a shoe rack) to hang over the backs of the front seats. We found that without a way to organize the games, etc., we had crayons in the seats and floorboards (along with game pieces, etc.). That also provided a place to keep snacks.

 

[Spinning]

This is great! Keep the ideas coming!
Colleen we always called that the dot game! It was one of my favorites when I was working and every fall we had to sit through a day of inservices! Same stuff every year! My friend and I would play the dot game all day long!
Great idea for behind the seat! I plan to get something
Oh here are some others, little more money but great to tell friends and family if a birthday is coming up!
Jam and draw travel! It comes with head set (QUIET!) the faster they color the faster the music. It is a dry erase board comes with markers, sells aroun $20
etch a setch
lacing cards
stickers,
felt boards
Leap pad, expensive but DD got one for Christmas so plan to get a few books for the trip

Keep the ideas coming!

 

[padams]

great thread! DSs are 4 and 6. We are thinking about driving to WDW so I appreciate all of the ideas. DSs like books on cassette tape. Each DS has a walkman with headphones. DSs have several Disney tapes with storybooks. We also play a game where we takes turns going through the alphabet and thinking of words that begin with the next letter (i.e. 1st person says "A airplane", next person says "b balloon", etc.).

 

[Whitegloves]

sbclifton said...This isn't a game or activity, but when the kids were small, we always had the divided section thingys (sort of like a shoe rack) to hang over the backs of the front seats.

My husband won a gift certificate for Bass Pro a few years ago...we found these neat 'seat thingys' in their catalog. They even have a little pull down 'desktop' in them. I'm not sure if they still have them, you could check their website.

 

[momm2four]

Someone on another thread said something about bringing along those vinyl window cling things. Kids can arrange and rearrange them to their heart's content on the car windows.

 

[4evr@dzny]

This is one for older kids and adults. You choose someone famous (e.g. George Bush), then the next person has to name someone whose first name starts with B (e.g. Bette Midler). If both first name and last name start with the same letter (Mickey Mouse, for example) then order of play is reversed.
My older daughters and I have played this a lot on several different trips to Florida. The driver can be included in this, since it doesn't take your eyes from the road. We've even done it with just two people.
It's fun coming up with names from different generations - I get to know the latest singers while my kids learn who Frankie Avalon was!

 

[allicat1214]

Great thread!

We're going in 3 weeks -- here's a few things that I've planned for my DS - 10 and DD - 6. We travel by car a bit to the beach in the summer, so some of these things we've done in the past, but a few I've saved for this trip:

Game Boys (They each have one now) - I bought a WDW Game Boy game that I will give them right before the trip. I found it on Amazon.com and you help Chip 'n Dale and Jiminy Crickett navigate all the different rides at WDW. It's called WDW Quest - Magical Racing Tour and it features major rides and Disney music.

Lap desks - bought at thrift stores and just spot cleaned with Clorox Cleaner

Hanger closet organizers - again bought at thrift stores to hang on back of front seats for their "stuff"

Backpacks with crayons, markers, paper and coloring books, etc.

"Busy board" write-on wipe-off marker boards (bought at an education supply store. Has blank side on one side and other side has 3 games: tic-tac-toe, hang-man and 2 others I can't remember!)

Books on tape

We also played the license game last summer, but I just kept a running list. In fact, we still notice out of state licenses whenever we're out. I like the idea of the US map and them coloring each state in.

Enjoy your trips!

 

[BuzzDad]

What a great thread!

We are driving to WDW in 3 weeks with 6yo and 2yo. These are great ideas. One thing we plan to do is hook up the kids' TV/VCR combo unit to a power inverter that runs off cig. lighter, with enough power to run Nintendo 64 (headphones are a must).

 

[ScrappinBear]

We drove down to WDW in Oct 2000. I packed each child, DS then 4, and DD then 2 each a backpack filled with things they hadn't seen before... the biggest hit was the pocket size magna doodles !! They have travel size too that are a little bigger ! Other things I packed.... crayons, coloring books, matchbox cars, legos, stickers.... and when they got really fidgety we pulled out the laptop and played a DVD movie. They did pretty good ! I also made sure that I had a few childrens CD's that they sand along with !!

Have Fun !!!

 

[Lisa AF]

My DH makes a copy of the road map for each of our DD. He then highlights the route we will take and #'s different points on the map (a tunnel, state capital, etc.). He then puts me in charge of letting them know when we have reached the next #. They quickly get out their pens and draw a line from the previous. When they want to know "HOW MUCH FURTHER", they simply pull out their maps and check for them selves!!

We also have our own version of "who wants to be a millionaire", played with age appropriate Brain Quest cards

We also made a bingo game once. It had things on it like someone sleeping in their car, or someone singing. We laminated them and used dry erase markers.