by Shawn M. J. Mann

Created on: November 08, 2008   Last Updated: May 02, 2009

Are We There Yet?

Keeping the kids occupied on long trips has probably been a challenge since the first group of Neanderthals packed up their belongings and migrated to a new area. So, what are some things you can do, to keep the kids busy so they don't fight with each other in the back seat or drive you nuts asking the eternal question, "Are we there yet?"

Word games are always a favorite, and don't require anything but your brain to play. These are also playable by the driver, and can relieve boredom and highway hypnotism. Here are a few that I grew up playing, and still play with my own kids.

Word Association: This is fun, challenging, and can last for several hours. The way to play it is, the first person comes up with a random word; for example, "Milk". The second person then comes up with the first thing they think of relating to milk, say "Cow". A word can be challenged, if the connection to the previous word isn't obvious. Continue around the car (Minimum of two players, you can play with as many people as you want), until somebody gets caught repeating an earlier word. It is fun to see how the flow of associated words can change so drastically from the original word. This is especially great for helping younger children add to their vocabulary... if they don't know what a word means, you can teach them.

Grocery Store: This is a memory game, where one player says "I went to the grocery store and bought (Something starting with the letter 'A' - we'll use Apples)". Then the second player repeats, "I went to the grocery store and bought (Apples), and (Bananas)." and so on, through the alphabet. This can be varied by changing the location. "I went to the Zoo and saw an Antelope".

If you are in Cattle Country, a fun one to play is "Cattle Guard". Cattle guards are those decks in the road near fence lines to keep livestock from crossing. The way to play is the first person to call out, "Cattle Guard" gets a point. At the end of the trip, the person with the most points wins.

Make up a story about the people in the car in front of you. Try to guess where they are going, where they are coming from, that the driver is allergic to chocolate and the passenger likes to eat sushi for breakfast, what are their names... you can be as creative as you want. This is a good one for getting some laughs and relieving some tension in your own car.

As a backup plan, you can print up some paper games off the Internet (There are a lot of web sites that offer these for free), such as Battleship, License plate Bingo, and others, but I'm pretty sure the word games here can occupy you through a coast to coast road trip. Safe journeys!

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