FUN ROAD TRIP GAMES & ACTIVITIES

A memory builder for all. How good is your memory? List the things Grandpa has packed to go on holiday. The items can be as weird or wonderful as you like, the point is you must remember them.
1st player says: My Grandpa went on holiday and in his suitcase he packed: ... a pair of binoculars. The next person repeats the opening sentence + the item and then adds another item.
2nd player says: My Grandpa went on holiday and in his suitcase he packed: ... a pair of binoculars and a wig. Carry on until someone gets an item wrong or can't remember one. It could end up like this:
3rd player says: My Grandpa went on holiday and in his suitcase he packed: ... a pair of binoculars, a wig, an egg, the Queen of England, an umbrella, his favorite chair, his dog, a guitar, toe socks, Nike sneakers, bubble gum, dog food, his barber, a helmet, a parachute, underpants, Whisky, a lifeboat, snorkeling gear and on and on and on!

Listen to the songs on the Radio or play a Cd - First to give the correct title of the song wins! You can alternate between 3 radio stations or hit the "seek" button it will prevent anyone listening to a particular cd or radio station often from having an unfair advantage in road trip games.

You say 2 things that Silly Willy likes and then 2 things that he doesn't like as clues to the thing that Silly Willy really likes. No one knows what it is, they have to guess from the clues, it goes like this:
Silly Willy likes butter and dandelions but not cabbage and post boxes.
Can you guess it is: Yellow, if not the person giving the clues must carry on with 2 more things that Silly Willy likes and dislikes as clues.

Choose a word and mix the letters up. See if the rest can figure out what it is.
Example:
MULP = PLUM
LEPAP = APPLE
HESOU = HOUSE

Use the hand you would not normally write with for this game. 1st person call out an object (ex: tree), everyone draw a tree - you only have 15 seconds. The driver keeps time. The driver selects the best attempt. Play 10 times. The highest amount of wins out of ten is the overall winner. Great fun because it is difficult to draw with the opposite hand; it is more difficult in a moving car!

Sky Vision or S.V - The front windscreen of the car is the S.V (T.V) screen, look into the distance at the clouds and decide what the clouds look like.
Variation: What are they doing, where are they going? Are they playing road trip games!?

Print some doodle pages in advance or get a doodle book. Each passenger picks one and doodles away.
Variation: Choose one page; give each person in the car a turn to add a little something.
Variation: Give each person a chance to color in a little object - for fun color it in with weird colors. Sun - blue, grass - pink etc. Doodles & Mazes make great road trip games, create your own!

Rate the people in the surrounding cars as Happy or Sour. The fun part is to pull a very happy or sour face at the people inside your own car as part of your rating. Variation: Sweet or Sour - Wave at people in other cars - if they wave back they are sweet, if they don't they are SOUR! Other people are unknowingly 'fun road trip games'!

A person choose an object and then describe it in 3 short sentences: It can hold things inside. It is made out of wood. It moves without an engine.
Then says: Ready Steady: ...ROW! The first person to shout out ROWING BOAT correctly wins. Next person: It is very shallow. It is made of vinyl. It can hold water. Ready Steady: ...SWIM! The winner shouts out BABY POOL! Next person: It is hairy. It is friendly. It likes to play. Ready Steady: ...BARK! The first person to shout DOG or the house pets name wins! Loud road trip games calls for 'the quiet game' afterwards!

Memory, counting and small motor skills! Competitive road trip games are real fun. How quick are you? This requires mixed color beads in a plastic container and a string of any length you choose for each player. Sizes of the beads and the number of instructions can be adapted to the ages that are playing. Make a knot on one end of the string. Player 1 says: 1st Red, 4th White, 5th Blue Go! This means you race each other to fill the string with beads BUT the 1st bead OUT OF 10 must be RED, the 4th white and the 5th blue. The rest in-between can be any color. First one with a full string wins! Sorry, if you used your instruction colors too many times and are out of colors for the instructions - UNBEAD!

Each person gets a chance to choose an object - type of tree, type of bird, color cow/horse, bus etc. The first person to spot a similar object wins!

Having small pies (in the small tin foil baking trays) on the road? Encourage creativity with road trip games. Create something with the tin foil baking tray by folding it. A leaf, a sword, a flower, a face, mini tiara or a tree perhaps - be creative.
Variation: Take a roll of cheap tin foil along on the trip to have some tin foil folding fun - create different objects.

Take a piece of paper and draw the head of an animal at the top, next to it write what it will eat. Fold the paper down so that it JUST covers the head and pass to the next person, who draws the next part of the body - it can be anything, a wobbly neck, no neck & strange body, other animals body, piece of clothing etc. Next to it write how this area must be taken care of - rub every 5 minutes, stare at for 1 minute every hour etc. Again fold it down so that it JUST covers the drawing and pass on. Continue to draw and write a care instruction. Once at the end of the paper, someone draws the feet, then, open it up! Oh my what do we have - a monster pet! The next person gets the pet; must take care of it for the rest of the trip and carry out the instructions!

What happened next? Fine story telling at its best and you will be surprised what comes out! Who knows where the story will begin or end! All get to listen to a story - no one knows what will happen next... Pick an author to start - 30 seconds that's all you have. When their time is up the next person continues with the story, pick up where the previous person left off and continue for another 30 seconds. You can go round and round as many times as you wish; the last person must end the story.
A few story ideas or create your own:
Mom said they could have ice-cream for breakfast but as they eagerly sat down at the breakfast table, they had a feeling ice-cream is about to change forever....
One fine day, long, long ago in the world of Make Belief while a frog and his friends were lazing around in the sun at a small stream... It suddenly went dark, very, very dark!
It all started when he wanted to say "Great game!" but instead yelled out "It's a circus, you turn everything into a circus"....

Limericks are a great way to teach young kids about poetry and to broaden their understanding of sounds and rhythms of speech. A limericks 1st, 2nd and 5th line rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm and the 3rd and 4th lines rhyme with each other and have a different rhythm. Have fun making up limericks. Kids are usually better than adults with this!

Example:

[Line 1] There was an old man from Peru, (Rhythm A)
[Line 2] who dreamed he was eating his shoe. (Rhythm A)

[Line 3] He awoke in the night (Rhythm B)
[Line 4] with a terrible fright, (Rhythm B)
[Line 5] and found out that it was quite true. (Rhythm A)