By Janice D. Green

Is your family preparing for a trip when school lets out for the summer? Do memories of your children’s comments like “Are we almost there yet?” “How many more miles?” or “Sammy is looking at me!” plague your mind from your last trip?

If this is true, resist the urge to give them all cell phones to keep them occupied. Even time riding in the car can be used for building family togetherness with a little planning. Develop a repertoire of games and activities that your family can play in the car. Family activities can improve family bonding while DVDs and smart phones, however temptingly convenient, isolate family members as each withdraws into his/her own space.

Most car games require little or no equipment to play. Here are a few games for starters:

ABCs
A very simple game is to look for the letters of the alphabet in order. The first person to get to “Z” wins. Decide on a few rules to put everyone on the same playing level. Should only letters outside the car count? Do the players have to call out the letters as they see them or is everyone on the honor system. You should know your family and what it takes to make this game fun for everyone.

Guess what I’m counting
One player, we’ll call him the “counter,”  thinks of something that occurs often enough in the area that he/she can count them. For instance, if he decides to count mailboxes, he audibly counts mailboxes as the car passes them. Of course, the counter tries not to look directly at the item as he counts it. The other family members try to guess what the counter is counting. The first person to get it right is the next counter.

State Licence Tags
This is not necessarily a competition, and it can be played at the same time as other games, but it can be fun to see how many different state’s licence tags you can find while traveling. If you have a simple line map of the United States with the states outlined and possibly named, you can use it to color in the states as you see the tags.  But you don’t have to have a map, you can use an alphabetical listing of the states, or you can simply write the names on a piece of paper as you see them. This game is best on a highly traveled interstate highway or in tourist areas. I have been known to drive through parking lots on occasion hoping to find new states to add to the list.

Name that Tune
Does your family enjoy singing together? You could simply sing away the miles, or you could play a game called “Name that Tune.” A family member (who can do a pretty good job of carrying a tune) should hum a tune. The rest of the family tries to be the first to guess the name of the song. If someone is really good with rhythm he might clap the rhythm of a song to see if anyone can guess the song.

Counting Cows
If you driving through a part of the country that has a lot of dairy cows, you can divide the family into two teams. One team counts cows on the right side of the road while the other team counts on the left side. Cows must be counted individually; numbers in a large herd of cows cannot be estimated. White horses count as ten points. A cemetery causes a team to lose all their points, but only if the other team sees it and calls it out. In other words, if there is a cemetery on your side of the road but the other team players are only looking for cows on their side of the road and don’t see it, you don’t lose your cows. The driver can’t participate in counting in this game but can look for white horses and cemeteries. When my family played this game we modified it so that a team only lost half their cows with a cemetery. As long as the family agrees ahead of time you can adjust the rules to suit you.

Rock-Scissors-Paper
This is a hand game most school children already know, but it is a great way for children to pass time while riding. There are three hand positions in this game. A flat hand represents paper, a fist represents a rock, and two fingers extended with the rest closed represents a pair of scissors. Each of these items wins over one and loses over the other in the following way. Paper can wrap up a rock, a rock can break a pair of scissors, and scissors can cut paper. To play the game, the players all count in unison “one, two, three” and on the count of three each must instantly use their hand to represent paper, rock, or scissors. Then everyone sees who beats who. If only two people play the game you can keep score. Otherwise each round stands alone.

Paper and Pencil Games
There are any number of paper and pencil games including Hangman and Tic Tac Toe. Or children could draw something and their brothers and sisters could try to guess what it is. Here is a link to a website with a list of several paper and pencil games you can use to choose appropriate games for your children: 8 fun pencil and paper games for kids (+ printables!)

This list of games is not exhaustive. I invite readers to add a few more games in the comments below.