by Lynn Gordon
52® Fun Things to do in the Car
By Lynn Gorden
Illustrated by Susan Synanki & Karen Johnson
Table of Contents
Car Activity Box
Jolly Roger
One to One Hundred
Puppet Show
A-Cownting
Hum That Tune
One Word Stories
Phrase Plates
Silly Songs
Alphabet Objects
It’s In
Rainbow of Color
Word Plates
Conversation Plates
Name That Tune
Imaginature
Playground!
Rememory
Silly Speak
Car-o-Glyphics
Pretend-a-Plane
Eagle Eye
Story Round
Catch the Wave
Alphabet Categories
Hot Words
Adventure Mystery
Strange Questions
ESP
Home Sweet Home
Charades
Post Office
Car-respondence
Invention
Ridiculous Riddles
Little White Lines
Tongue Twisters
Color Game
Breath Animals
Picture Windows
Packing a Suitcase
If I were…
Back Words
Car Gobbler
Hanimation
Amazing Braiding
Invent-a-map
Categories
Ship’s Trip Log
Super Heroes
Activity Lap Box
Alphabet Story
Crack Up
More eTitles in the 52® Series
Copyright
Car Activity Box
All this can fit in a shoe box under the seat.
White paper
Colored paper
Tape
Markers
Pens or pencils
Dry-erase markers or window markers
A deck of cards
Postcards or writing paper
A small notebook
Some yarn or ribbon
Jolly Roger
Pretend the car is a ship and you are all pirates. Can you design a treasure map and a flag that represents your “ship”? Take turns being the capt’n and the maties. There better not be a bilge rat among you. Can you talk like pirates? Here are some phrases that may come in handy: Arrr! That be a fine cow by the road. Avast ye hearties! Me thinks me needs a rest stop. Shiver me timbers! I’ve smelt a skunk that went to Davy Jones’ locker. What other expressions can you make up?
One to One Hundred
Find every number from one to one hundred, in order, outside the car. Everybody can help find the numbers, calling them out as they see them on signs and license plates. If you reach one hundred quickly, see how much higher you can go.
Puppet Show
Materials: Lunch-sized paper bags, Crayons
With lunch-sized paper bags and crayons, you can make paper bag puppets. Then put on a puppet show for each other or for people in the other cars driving by.
A-Cownting
Each person picks a side of the road to count cows on, and whichever side counts the most cows wins. But if either side passes a cemetery, they lose all of their cows. This game can still be played in the city—where there aren’t usually any cows—by counting people wearing hats instead. And instead of passing a cemetery, in the city, passing a police car would cause that side to lose all their points. If there are neither cows nor people with hats around, pick something else to count.
Hum That Tune
Take turns humming a song and letting the others in the car guess what song it is. Whoever guesses correctly gets to hum the next one. For a bigger challenge try clapping the rhythm of the song, or slapping it on your knees.
One Word Stories
Somebody starts a story by saying just one word. Then everybody takes a turn adding the next word to the story as quickly as they can, until the story is over or until somebody stalls too long trying to think of the next word.
Phrase Plates
Make up as many phrases as you can using the letters from license plates. Use each letter to begin a word in your phrase, and feel free to mix up the letters on your license plate to make new phrases. For example, if the license plate is 234PDQ, one phrase could be “Pretty Daring Quail” or, if you mix up the letters, “Dear Quirky People.”
Silly Songs
After deciding on a favorite famiiar tune, everybody makes up new words to go with the melody. This can be done by going around in order, with each person adding a line, or just by singing along and making up a story to the old tune as you go. Making up a song about the trip you’re taking is a good way to remember the places you’ve already visited.
Your songs may be so good you’ll want to record them in a car songbook, a blank notebook kept in the car just for that purpose.
Alphabet Objects
Find an object outside the car that starts with each letter of the alphabet, in order. Call things out as you find them. This can be played with everyone in the car building one alphabet or with each person completing their own. When you are doing individual alphabets, an object can be used only once, so the first person to spot the things gets that letter. Whoever completes the alphabet first gets to choose the next game.
It’s In
Think of a category: red things, things with wheels, things with stripes, things in the shade, things that are broken. Don’t say what your category is. Point out three things that fit in your category as you pass by them. Everybody in the car has to try to figure out what the category is by pointing out things and asking if it is “in” (your category). You say yes or no. After they get several yeses in a row they can try to name your category.
Rainbow of Color
Materials: Pencils or crayons; Paper
Using different colored crayons, make a big rainbow of colors on a piece of paper, leaving space beneath each color to fill in with the name of something. Outside the car, find an object for every color of your rainbow. This can be played silently, by writing down the name of the object beneath its color, or you can play aloud, calling out the name and putting an X under the color.
Word Plates
Take turns picking out a license plate and seeing who can make a word that has the same letters as the license plate. The letters don’t need to be used in any special order, and you can just ignore the numbers on the plate. For example, LMP237 could make lump, maple, or plum.
Conversation Plates
Hold a conversation by making sentences from the letters on license plates. Stick to the order the letters are in on the plate. For example, a license plate might be HAY928. One possible sentence is “How Are You?” Then another player makes a sentence from another license plate, 190DPG: “Doing Pretty Good.” Keep going until the conversation stops.
Name That Tune
As soon as a song comes on the radio, the first person to recognize the song’s title, the singer, or any other detail about the song gets a point for each detail. Before you start, decide how many points it takes to win. If this gets too easy, make up harder things to recognize about the song, such as the last word in the song or the name of another song by the same artist.
Imaginature
This is a game that requires only your imagination. While driving along, look at the landscape and try and see faces, animals, or objects in the clouds, mountains, and hills. Maybe a mountain ridge looks like a sleeping giant, or a rock outcropping looks like a finger pointed at the sky. See if the others in t
he car see the same things you do. If you find something you really like, make up a story about it and tell it to the others.
Playground!
Pick a place such as a playground, an ice cream shop, a bookstore, or a fruit stand to be on the lookout for. If you’re looking for a fruit stand and you spot one, you have to be silent until you see the next one. Alternately, the driver stops for a break when you spot one or everyone in the car has to hum a song until the next fruit stand is passed.
Rememory
To play Rememory, somebody suggests a person, place, or thing for everybody to remember. Then take turns each remembering one thing. If you’re remembering a person, for example, you could say what color eyes she has, where she keeps her car keys, what she likes to eat, anything! Keep taking turns until no one can remember anything else and then move to another person, place, or thing.
Silly Speak
Making up your own language is a fun process. You could try to create a language where everybody speaks normally except that they add the first letter from their name in front of each word. Or try scrambling the words in your sentences so that “I want to stop,” for example, becomes “Stop I to want.”
You can also make up new words for things instead of making up a whole language. For example, you could call cars “igfrads” and stop signs “greebles.” Think of other silly words for things you see on the road.
Car-o-Glyphics
Materials: Dry-erase markers
With dry-erase or window markers you can write words backward on the side windows, or draw pictures. You can even draw pictures of the scenery you are driving through. Try to tell the story of your trip with pictures alone. Be sure to keep the markers off the seats.
Pretend-a-Plane
Pretend your car is an airplane or a spaceship. Pretend your driver is the pilot, make another person the co-pilot, and then everybody else can pick another character you would find on an airplane or spaceship, such as mechanic, flight attendant (the head flight attendant is called a purser), medic. Hold conversations, as your character, about the trip you are taking and what your mission is.
Eagle Eye
Try to guess the distance of faraway objects. Pick something big and far ahead by the roadside like a barn, or a water tower. Ask the driver to start the trip odometer. Guess how far it is. When you pass by it check the odometer. How close were you? Try it several times. Did your guesses improve? You can also guess by counting in seconds instead of distance.
Story Round
Somebody starts telling a story and, after a few minutes, points to another person who continues the story for a bit and then points to the next person. And so on until everybody has had a chance to add to the story several times or until someone ends the story. If you are stumped for how to start try a “That’s Good, That’s Bad” story. One person says a first sentence, like “There once was a girl who found a pot of gold. That’s good.” The next person imagines a reason why that is bad. (“No! That’s bad! Because it belonged to a dragon who was really angry and lit her house on fire.”) The next person thinks of a reason why that would be good (“No! That’s good! When the house burned down a secret tunnel was revealed.”), and so on.
Catch the Wave
Wave to other people in cars and semi-trucks and see them smile. Keep track of how many honk or wave back. You could even make a list of ten different types of cars or people that have to wave back before the game is over.
Alphabet Categories
Alphabet Categories is played by calling out all the animals whose names start with one letter of the alphabet. When you are done with one letter, go to another and see how many animals’ names start with that letter. This can also be played with state capitals, countries, people, and so on.
Hot Words
At the beginning of your trip, pick five “hot” words that nobody can say the whole time you are in the car. When you talk, try to make each other accidentally say the “hot” words. You can add new “hot” words or change them during the trip.
Adventure Mystery
Make up an adventure story or mystery story about your trip. Something terrible has happened (maybe someone’s birthday presents were stolen, or maybe everyone at your destination turned into a frog!). You have been given the job of figuring out the mystery and catching the villain. Be sure to include the places you pass, people you see, and where you are going in your story. Adventure heroes often get help from a mentor. Did you meet anyone who might have given you secret information that will help you on your quest? Where will you encounter the villain?
Strange Questions
Try to stump others in the car by asking questions you think no one knows the answer to. The tricky part is, you do have to know the answer. For example, you could ask what make rain clouds gray (if you know the answer) or where the ski boots are stored at home. If nobody knows the answer, you get to explain and then ask another question. Keep going until you ask a question that some else knows the answer to. Then it’s his or her turn to ask questions.
ESP
Materials: A deck of cards
To play ESP (Extra-Sensory Perception) all you need is a deck of cards. You can play alone or with somebody else. Without turning the cards over, sort them into two piles, with the ones you think are black in one pile on your lap and the ones you think are red in another. Now turn the piles over and count how many you get right. Do you believe in ESP? Try this with someone else in the car and see how they do. Are there other card games you can play?
Home Sweet Home
Have you ever wondered what kind of house you’ll live in when you grow up? Pick a side of the road and a number between one and a hundred. Count buildings that pass by on that side until you reach your number. Whether it is a mansion or a garden shed, this is your future house! Imagine what it would be like to live there.
Charades
Charades can be played in the car but instead of using your whole body, you just use your hands and face to act things out. It’s a little bit harder to do this way, so start out with single words. Whoever guesses the right word gets to go next.
Post Office
Materials: Pen or pencil; Paper
This is a good game to play when things start getting a little noisy in the car. Instead of talking, pass notes and play post office. Everybody gets some paper and a pen to write letters with. Pick somebody to be the mail carrier and deliver your notes. Write who the note is to on the outside. See how long you can go without having to talk.
Car-respondence
Materials: Postcards or writing paper; Pen
If you keep some postcards or blank paper in the car, you can take advantage of the family being together to write cards and letters to family friends. Somebody who won’t get car sick writes down what the others want to say so the letter can be from all of you.
Invention
In this game, everybody can pretend they are an inventor. Someone calls out the name of a common object, like a dog leash, and then everybody thinks up all sorts of funny uses for it, other than a dog leash. For example, a dog leash could be a belt, a laundry line, or piece of dental floss for elephants. Try to think of twenty new uses for each old, common object. Then choose another object and start all over again.
Ridiculous Riddles
Making up riddles is good, silly fun. One person in the car can ask an ordinary question, such as “Why do birds have wings?” Everyone else tries to come up with the silliest answer, like “because their parents wouldn’t let them borrow the car,” or “because roller skates don’t come small enough.” Someone may even want to start a car riddle book that you can add new riddles to every time you take a trip.
Little White Lines
How many white lines are there in a mile? Have everyone in the car guess. Then ask the driver to press the trip odometer and begin counting. Stop counting when the odometer reaches one mile. Who was the closest? Can you figure out how many white lines there are until your destination? Or
between here and the next tree?
Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are easy to make up and hard to say. Somebody calls out a topic, like “slimy seals,” and then everybody thinks of words that sound similar, like swish, smelly, and soap. You end up with a tongue twister of Slimy Seals Swish Smelly Soap. Say that three times fast! Try one of your own now.
Color Game
Color Categories is played by calling out a color and then naming everything you can think of that is that color. Go around in a circle with everyone naming something. Keep going until someone can’t think of anything that’s the right color. That person has to drop out and then the circle continues without them until there’s just one person left. The remaining person is the winner and gets to pick the color for the next round.
Breath Animals
