{"id":146,"date":"2009-06-27T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-27T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/27\/fun-on-the-road\/"},"modified":"2009-06-27T20:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T20:05:00","slug":"fun-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/27\/fun-on-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun on the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Arial\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Stuck in a car together and looking for ways to keep the kids happy?&nbsp; Whether you&#8217;re headed cross country or are just looking for ways to make a trip the grocery store more fun, here&#8217;s some activities and ideas that work for us.&nbsp; Some of these also workgreat IN the grocery store to keep the kids happy too!<\/font><\/font>  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<ul><font face=\"Arial\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\"><br \/><\/font><\/font><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Play alphabet games.&nbsp; For instance there&#8217;s the biography one where you go through the alphabet making up identities to match each letter: &quot;A my name is Anna, I&#8217;m from Arkansas and I like arguing&#8230;&quot;.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Get books on tape.&nbsp; Your library carries oodles of these, from storybooks read aloud to little song and rhyme collections.&nbsp; They&#8217;re fantastic.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Silly counting:&nbsp; Daryl dreamed this one up.&nbsp; Have your child slowly count.&nbsp; As she is counting, start asking questions to get funny answers.&nbsp; For instance&#8230; 1, 2, 3, &quot;How many noses do you have?&quot; &#8230;4 &quot;You have 4 noses?!&quot; 5, 6&#8230; &quot;How old is your mother?&quot; 7&#8230; &quot;7 years old?&nbsp; Wow she&#8217;s young!&quot; 8, 9, 10&#8230; &quot;How many cats can you fit in your mouth?&quot; 10&#8230;.&nbsp; This makes little ones howl with laughter if you do it silly enough.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Play children&#8217;s music.&nbsp; Victoria says it&#8217;s important that children sing it too.&nbsp; No matter how cool adults are, she always prefers to sing along with other kids.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">If you&#8217;re brave enough, give them washable window markers (Crayola makes some) and a wet wipe, and let them decorate their windows as they ride.&nbsp; Truth be told, we use regular washable markers on windows too.<br \/><\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Bring a ziplock bag of colorform shapes.&nbsp; These are the little peel and stick people, pets, shapes, etc.&nbsp; They cling to windows so kids can create scene after scene.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Lend the kids a digital camera and ask them to take pictures as you go.&nbsp; This is a huge treat for our kids during trips and some of the photos have been really wonderful.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Balance things on your head.&nbsp; Give the kids something like a beanie baby to balance on their heads and challenge them to see how long they can hold it there.&nbsp; Our girls sat for an amazing amount of time quietly concentrating on doing this.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Put older kids in charge of keeping &quot;the log.&quot;&nbsp; We&#8217;ve had this tradition on trips since before we had children.&nbsp; We keep track of times, mileage, sights seen, weather, stops, you name it.&nbsp; The goofy entries make us laugh years later.&nbsp; Each night, read the day&#8217;s log together.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Make up a treasure hunt list.&nbsp; Write down 20 things to seeon the trip and have the child cross them out as he spots them.&nbsp; Younger kids can do this with picture lists.&nbsp; Examples of things to list&#8211; tractor, semi truck, billboard with a person on it, motorcycle, green house, dog, deer crossing sign, mailbox&#8230;<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Bring paper and crayons so the kids can do art.&nbsp; A cookie sheet makes a good lap tray since crayons can&#8217;t roll off.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Print out activity pages from online and keep them in a folder just for car trips.<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Bring the magna doodle<\/font><\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Sing songs together.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">Play &quot;would you rather.&quot;&nbsp; This game occupied a car full of kids ages 4 to 14 for hours in Maine a couple of years ago.&nbsp; Ask the kids to make choices like would you rather take a trip to the moon or the bottom of the ocean, never eat ice cream again or never have chocolate, live in a zoo or a shopping mall, be a surgeon or a painter&#8230;<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>  <\/span><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><br \/><\/span><\/font><\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"> <\/span><font face=\"Arial\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font color=\"#3333ff\"><font size=\"+1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.momsminivan.com\/\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\">This site<\/span><\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\"> has printable bingo cards, games, coloring pages, you name it:<\/font><\/font> <br \/>&nbsp;<br \/><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font size=\"+1\">And <\/font><\/font><\/span><font face=\"Tahoma\"><font color=\"#3333ff\"><font size=\"+1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carschooling.com\/\"><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\">this site<\/span><\/a><\/font><span style=\"color:rgb(0,153,51);\"><font size=\"+1\"> goes with the book <u>Carschooling<\/u>.&nbsp; You can sign up for a newsletter, mailing lists, etc.<\/p>\n<p>What are your favorite ways to stay busy in car rides?&nbsp; <br \/><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stuck in a car together and looking for ways to keep the kids happy?&nbsp; Whether you&#8217;re headed cross country or are just looking for ways to make a trip the grocery store more fun, here&#8217;s some activities and ideas that work for us.&nbsp; Some of these also workgreat IN the grocery store to keep the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[108,193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}