New Zealand roads can be a challenge on long trips and kids can easily get tired, bored and find their own entertainment by embarking on long arguments with their siblings and sometimes physical violence. Make some plans before you head off, and be prepared with lots of games and activities to keep them occupied.
oap it out. Buy a road map and some stickers and get the kids to follow the route you are taking as you go along. This does mean the driver will be answering many questions about where on the route you are, but it will keep kids occupied and teach them a bit about map skills.
Card games. A pack of cards can entertain for hours and it’s good for kids to learn that playing a game of go fish or rummy can be just as entertaining as watching a movie or listening to an iPod. If you’re not a great card game family, there are books you can buy with simple instructions for basic games.
Spelling bee. Pack a dictionary, unless you are a brilliant speller yourself, and hold a spelling bee from the front seat. Each child can write down the words you ask them to spell and then they can earn treats (food, money, $2 shop toys) for the number of words they spell correctly.
I spy. This is an old favourite for most families and can be a great game to get rid of half an hour of driving time. Simply take turns to choose something everyone can see out of the window and say, “I spy something beginning with… C.” The first person to name the correct object gets to have the next turn.
Alphabet soup. Pick a letter and a topic to go with it, such as “B” and “animals” and then get everyone to name all of the animals they can think of beginning with B, such as bison, bear etc. other topics could be cars, countries, food or TV shows.
Board games. oany popular board games such as Scrabble and draughts come in miniature sizes with magnetic pieces so stock up for the trip and later for wet days on the holiday.
Audio book it. CDs of kids’ favourite books and songs can be just the ticket for a long trip. You can check many great audio books out of the library or buy them at a book shop.
Sing along. oost kids will get right into the swing of a decent singalong in the car to old favourites like Row, Row, Row, Your Boat or Three Blind oice, and if you have an ounce of musical ability you can be the one to organise the rounds.
Journal it. It’s a great idea to get every child a journal for their holiday. They can write stories in it, draw pictures and spend time every day recording their adventures. In the car, they can make a start by clipping pictures from old magazines, designing a fancy title page and personalising their journal. Just provide a box full of magazines, scissors, glue and ribbons etc for them to delve into.
Story time. Create your own story along the way by getting one person to start the story, such as, “once upon a time a little girl went up the hill and all she could see was snow.” Then another person picks up the story and adds their sentence and then another person in the car. Eventually you will have created a wacky and probably hilarious story as a family. And if you want to make it harder, you can make a rule that each new line needs to rhyme. You might want to assign one child to write down the story as it is created.
White board. Invest in a small white board and some markers so that your kids can draw pictures or play games such as hangman or noughts and crosses on it.
Silence. If you get through all of these games quickly and you still have an hour or so to go, then play the silence game, where you provide treats as an incentive for the person who can be quiet the longest. If you’re lucky, some of them will get so immersed in the game and trying to be quiet that they will fall asleep.
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