Travelling with children
I have always been interested in trying to find as many ways as possible to keep children amused when out and about with them. This started when, as a family with small children, we used to drive from South Africa to Zambia, which takes two full days. However, I quickly realised that these games came in useful when on an aeroplane, in the shopping centre, waiting in a queue, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, watching another child’s extramural activity or even at those family gatherings when it is mostly the older generation there. I am not, and never have been, a big fan of occupying my children with technology (see the chapter on technology and television) and therefore it was necessary to be creative and resourceful to keep the children amused.
For times when your children will need to be occupied for a longer period, such as, on a long car journey or in a plane, I found it useful to have a bag for each child with their specific things in it. The bag always included some basics;
Snacks – ideally these should not be messy foods, such as yoghurt nor should they be too salty as this makes children thirsty and then they need to go to the bathroom more often
Drinks – preferably in a sports bottle with a drinking spout to minimise spills and the best liquid refreshment would be water
Wet wipes and a small dry cloth – I always found these invaluable in every travel situation, whether you are cleaning up spills or just cleaning hands to eat. I also used to keep terry towelling nappies that the children could put over their laps when eating and then we could gather them up and shake the crumbs and residue outside of the car. The same cloth could be used for dangling over a car seat or window to block out the sun, covering children’s bare arms in the car if the air con got too cold for them even though the rest of us are hot, as well as being a small blanket for dolls and other toys that were with them.
Depending on your specific situation, you may want to purchase a few small, cheap toys that can be hidden in the backpack to surprise the child on the trip; alternatively, a while before the trip you could remove a couple of small toys from their rooms and re-present them on the trip, but obviously do not choose any of their favourites!
Something else I have always done is to keep small items in the car, which are changed as regularly as I remember, to keep children amused even if it is just a short trip down the road, as you never know when you are going to get stuck in traffic. It also means that if you land up somewhere and the children are getting bored but you are not able to interact with them, you can always grab the bag out of the car and keep them amused that way. What is in the bag does vary, but there is normally colouring in or blank books with crayons or felt tip pens, a pack of cards, whiteboards and markers and toys that can be built or clipped together, such as Lego or Zoob; other toys that make appearances on and off are the “I spy” bottle (see below), a plastic tea set, lacing games, toy cars and a small doll.
What follows are the different games and activities that we have played and loved as a family. What I particularly like about them is many of the games can be played with a wide variety of ages.
Games and activities
Younger children obviously need to be interacted with a lot more than older children but all age groups can be given a book, with small children having board books that have different textures inside and older children having books that they are able to read independently.
When children are learning basic skills, such as counting, colours, shapes and other concepts, these can be easily turned into activities when waiting somewhere. Challenge your child to find three red things or to point out as many green things, circles or things with wheels that they can see. When they start to read, they can look for certain letters on signs or in books and magazines.
Singing songs, whether you have a good singing voice or not, always goes down well with small children. Singing songs that are interactive, such as, “The wheels on the bus,” “Itsy-bitsy spider,” “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands” and “Old MacDonald had a farm” are much loved favourites that most children (even the older ones) enjoy.
An “I spy” bottle can be a lot of fun. I made ours by taking a clear water bottle, filling it with rice and dropping in a wide variety of little things, such as, oddly shaped buttons, beads, a small circular mirror and table confetti shapes, then sealing the lid with glue. I had also sprinkled in a small amount of glitter and tiny plastic beads in a variety of colours just to add more visual interest to the rice and it is amazing how long this kept the children busy for (even the older ones) as they searched for certain objects and they were continually excited by what they found.
Hand puppets and finger puppets can keep children amused for extended periods, whether they are playing with them by themselves or you are playing with them.
Playing “I spy” has to be a family favourite for us. We played this when the children were younger and they had to look for something that was described to them, for example, “I spy with my little eye something that is small, red and fluffy.” The amount of detail in what they were expected to look for varied according to their age and ability and when they started to learn the alphabet, we were careful to play the game phonetically; by this I mean, “I spy with my little eye something beginning with “ah” (rather than saying A).”
Word association games can be a lot of fun. This is started by a person saying a word and the next person has to say the first word that pops into their mind that relates to previous the word. For example, the first person may say “car,” the next person follows this with “wheel” and the next person says “ride.” This game is supposed to be fairly fast paced so if you are playing it more competitively then the person is out if they take too long to come up with a word or if there is general agreement that there is no link between the words.
Go through the alphabet naming pre-determined objects that begin with that letter, for example, everyone must name a boy’s name beginning with A, then, B, etc. and each name must be different. Alternatively, the next person could work with the next letter so the first person has ‘A,’ the next has ‘B’ and so on. The variations on this game are endless as you could name foods, places, first names, surnames, animals, songs, music artists/singers, and so on.
Another variation on the game above is progressing through the alphabet but looking for each letter on signs, license plates and buildings when driving through urban areas. The first one to get to the letter “Z” is the winner!
Specific car bingo boards can be purchased online but it is incredibly easy to create a variation on this game yourself. Either put together a page with different pictures that your child has to look for while driving or, for your older child who can read, give them a list of things they have to look for and the first person to cross off everything on their list is the winner. Obviously, this game does not have to be restricted to travelling in a car and could be an activity done on the beach, in a doctor’s waiting room, sitting in a restaurant, in an airport and once on the plane or when trailing through shopping centres.
A variation on having a bingo board or list is to simply look for certain things, such as being the first one to spot 10 red cars or 5 people wearing hats or 6 horses or a donkey with a cart or 3 aeroplanes and so on.
Many children love being read to and having a book available that you can read to them from is great, as is learning a specific story or poem that you can tell off by heart; this always seems to impress them!
Alternatively, you can make up a story as a family. The first person starts the story and then randomly stops and someone else is expected to carry on with the next part of the story. If you feel like taking this one step further, someone could call out a random word that the current storyteller has to include as part of their story somehow.
Audio CDs can be purchased or borrowed and listened to in the car or on portable CD players.
Pipe cleaners are incredibly versatile and can be twisted and shape into many different items. They are also readily available in a variety of different colours and sizes, making them fun for children to play with.
You can select one letter of the alphabet at a time and the children have to write down as many pre-decided items that begin with that letter as they can in one minute. Start by dividing a page into columns and putting headings at the top, such as, fruit, car, famous person, animal, country, etc. then give them a letter, for example, B and they have one minute to list as many things as they can under each column heading that begin with that letter. At the end of the time, they read out their answers and get a point for each item that no-one else had listed.
Educational games
I must confess that I enjoy playing games with my children that have hidden educational component wherever possible and we have always enjoyed trying to make words or sentences from the letters on different license plates or to add up numbers on the plates.
Play cards with your children or teach them to play solitary card games. There are a number of games that are appropriate for children and specific card packs with those in mind can be bought, such as, “Old Maid” or “Go Fish;” though these games can also be played with a standard pack of cards and all instructions would be readily available on the Internet if you never knew them or cannot remember how to play them.
Children love jokes. The sillier, the better! If you cannot remember the jokes from your childhood then look online or consider purchasing a silly joke book. You will impress the children if you can spout them without specifically reading from the book!
Hide and Seek has been enjoyed by generations of children and is obviously not one that can be played in a car, plane or doctor’s waiting room necessarily but a virtual version of this game can be played. The way it works is the “Hider” picks a place inside the house (or other pre-decided place) and imagines that they are hiding there. Playing this game virtually allows you to be any size you want to be and so you could hide inside the tumble dryer, the freezer, the cupboard under the sink, the cutlery drawer or anywhere else that you can imagine. The “Seekers” have to ask ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions in order to find you. Children enjoy this game as they can “hide” in places that they would really not fit into.
The game “Twenty Questions” has been played for many years and is loved by many. The idea of the game is to think of an object and other people have to guess, using 20 questions or less, what that object is. The first question generally determines what classification your object falls under, for example “person, place or thing” or “animal, vegetable or mineral.” The person is only able to answer questions with “yes” or “no” and the intention of the question is to narrow down their ideas and guess at the final object.
A version of “Twenty Questions” is “Who Am I?” You decide who you are, it can be somebody famous or even a family member and everyone has to guess, either by asking questions to which you can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or by responding to certain key statements you provide, for example, “I have very short hair” and “I like to wear big sunglasses.” You could even decide that you were an animal rather than a person, as long as you let everyone know first.
Most people have favourite things, be it a colour, movie, song, toy, restaurant, animal, book, flavour of ice cream, room in the house, place to be or holiday destination. This generally works as a good conversation starter but also reveals a lot about the person sharing the information.
If you make a grid of dots on a sheet of paper then you can play a game whereby each person takes it in turns to draw a line between 2 dots that are next to each other, either horizontally or vertically. The idea is to be able to eventually draw a line that makes a complete square at which point you get put your initials in the centre of the square and have another turn. Eventually the winner is determined by the person who has the most squares with their initials in it.
Have you played the game “Fortunately-Unfortunately?” This often leads to a lot of laughter as someone starts the game with an unfortunate situation, for example, “Unfortunately, there is a lion in the house.” Someone else might say, “Fortunately, he does not eat children,” but the adult might then say, “Unfortunately he is very hungry and needs to eat something,” to which someone might respond, “Fortunately I have a giant pack of lion food in my bedroom” and so the game continues.
As I’m sure you have noticed, most children like to talk about themselves and you can easily come up with a list of questions aimed at getting children to do just this. Some examples of questions would be,
What makes you happy?
What are your 3 favourite fruits?
If you can have anything to eat for breakfast, what would it be?
If you could visit one country for a day, which country would it be?
If you could spend the day with somebody famous, who would it be?
What is your favourite season and why?
What sport do you think we should take up as a family and why?
What do you think would be the best job for your mum/dad/brother/sister/aunt/cousin?
What would you like to invent in the future?
What do you like best about your teacher/friend/sibling?
What was the best dream you ever had?
Similar to the game “Fortunately-Unfortunately” in terms of inspiring conversation and ideas, some of which may be utterly ridiculous, you can play “Would you rather…” This game gets children thinking when you ask them questions such as, “Would you rather have an extra eye or an extra leg?” or “Would you rather travel to the moon or go deep sea diving?” or “Would you rather have 10 fingers on each hand or feet that could turn around until they faced the back of your body?”
Do you remember, “1-2-3-4, I declare a thumb war?” This is really quick and easy and children generally enjoy playing it, especially if you let them win at times. The same goes for, “paper-rock-scissors.”
My mum used to play game with us that she started by saying, “I am having a party and I am going to bring carrots. Would you like to come to my party? What would you bring?” What we did not know is that she had a secret rule and had already decided that each person could only come to her party if they brought an item that began with the same letter as their first name. As her name is Carolyn, she would bring items such as carrots, cool drink, coke, coffee, cats, and so on. What makes the game hard is every now and then the item you offer to bring does actually begin with the same letter as your name (marshmallows, in my case) and therefore she said you can come but then in the next round you name something else entirely (such as, puppies) and suddenly you cannot go to her party anymore! You predetermine the party rules before play and it could be, as mentioned, items that begin with a certain letter or letter of your name, items that begin with vowels, items that are square, items with two syllables, etc.
People watching can be an awful lot of fun, providing you are not being negative or derogatory in any comments that you make. You can encourage your children’s story telling skills and creativity by making up stories about people they can see nearby. What is that person’s job? What would he name his children? What are his favourite activities or hobbies? What did he have for breakfast? What do you think he will order when it is his turn at the counter?
Memory games
Children need to have good memory skills in order to be successful at school and a fun game to develop this is have the children look in a specific direction or at a specific thing for a period of time, then to turn around and list everything they can remember seeing. You could ask them specific questions, such as, What colour shirt was the person wearing? What was written on the T-shirt? How many glasses were on the table? What was the name of the magazine on top of the pile? and so on.
When waiting in a restaurant that are a few games that can be played such as a version of noughts and crosses, using straws for the board and different coloured sugar packets as the markers or noughts and crosses. Alternatively, you could hide a coin under one of three sugar packets and move them around, much like the old cups and balls magic trick, and they need to follow what you are doing and determine which packet is hiding the coin. You could get them to pay attention to items in the middle of the table, close their eyes while you take one of objects away and then when they look again they have to determine which item you removed.