Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Great ideas for looooong car ride?

We have a long (9 hours+) car trip coming up. Any great ideas for DD8 and DS4? They love their Auto Bingo cards (http://www.amazon.com/Travel-Roadtr...id=1342548045&sr=8-3&keywords=auto+bingo) and of course we'll bring books, but what else? Please Lord, nothing with little pieces that will fall on the floor of the car.

DS can read--about late 2nd/early 3rd grade level. His fine motor skills are early K level--he can write, but not very well, and he'd rather not do much of it. He can definitely circle and x out. He loves dry-erase things, but we aren't finding much that's on his level these days.

They are freakishly good at Where's Waldo books, so those are no good (they're done in about 15 minutes). I Spy is better, but we've done most of the ones at the library.

I haven't tried it, but a friend of mine said she had good luck with Bendaroos as a car toy.

If you don't have one built in, you might think about bringing a portable DVD player.

Our kids like to draw so we bring a sketch book and colored pencils for each (spiral-bound). If you're ok with crumbs in the car food is also always a big hit

We also charge up our iPad and laptop and let the kids play on them.

If we're really desperate, we go for the DVD Or we bore them to tears until they fall asleep and let them nap

polarbear

Books on CD are a nice ride eater. Sometimes we find a book/CD or two at Cracker Barrel and then drop it off at another one when we are done.

Interactive games we've done:
Name something you see beginning with the next letter in the alphabet (armadillo, boat, car...)

Storytelling handoff... each person contributes a line until the story ends. Can be extra fun with a tape recorder for later.

DS6 will sometimes just watch the scenery and think. But we've learned never to give a time estimate in case he wants to figure out the seconds and count them as we go..... argh

No screens will be on tap; we don't have a portable DVD player, smartphone, or iPad and I wouldn't give them my laptop (no way, Jose).

magna doodle. comes in many different sizes.
have them take turns to draw something that starts with letter A or make it a contest and other kid trys to guess what it is. many other ways to use in creative interactive games.
and no mess, its self contained like etch-a sketch.

get a triptik and use to learn mapping and navigation skills. and math for the how much farther.? i dont know look on the trip tik and add it up.
what's the next city, town over 4,000 etc.....

We supply ours with a large stash of back issues of Highlights, Ask and Muse magazines, as well as an atlas / maps from AAA. And we make sure we have a lot of They Might Be Giants CDs in the car, and all their other favorite music...

DeeDee

Audio books - we get them from the library to save $$. We also make stops -- parks, McDonald's PlayPlaces, etc.

We just did a 13 hour ride with our 7 and 5 year old. They each had 3 books, a small toy, and a bingo game. They were fine. They looked out the window, we talked and told jokes most of the way.
They were fine on the way there and the way back with little to do. And believe me, my children are INTENSE creatures. There is just something about being in the car and being able to look at different landscapes that works. We saw farms, mountains, The Worlds Most Awesome Flea Market (Thank you, God!), parks, hills, trees. They were cool with it.