With international travel restrictions in place, more and more people are taking road trips to explore our beautiful country. Although road trips allow you to travel and explore your surroundings they, however, can often be SUPER boring for little ones in the car. Rather than reaching for the iPad, how about trying a few language stimulating, thought providing games to sneak in some brain gymnastics?
Fortunately/ unfortunately
This game requires imagination, storytelling, long sentences and creative thinking!
Rules:
– Someone starts the game with ‘Fortunately…’ and mentions something fortunate
– The next person follows with ‘unfortunately…’ and says something related
– Continue around the car taking turns adding fortunate and unfortunate things. They can be as creative as you like!
Example:
– Fortunately, I’m going water skiing tomorrow
– Unfortunately, the lake had a family of giant squids move in over winter
– Fortunately, I’m a certified giant squid wrangler
– Etc
I went to a picnic
This game requires memory and quick thinking.
Rules:
– Choose where you went (a picnic, a party, a moon mission, a mountain adventure)
– Someone starts with the letter ‘a’, making the sentence, ‘ I went to a picnic (or party, etc), and I brought an avocado.’
– The next person thinks of something starting with the letter ‘b’ and adds their thing to the list after the letter ‘a’.
– The list gets longer and longer as you go around
– If you choose to play competitively, each play can have 3 chances to pause, mix up or forget an item, then they’re out!
If you’re not competitive or you’re working on your speech goals, help each other out.
Example
– I went to a picnic and I brought an avocado
– I went to a picnic and I brought an avocado and a broccoli
– I went to a picnic and I brought an avocado, broccoli and a cat-shaped cake.
– Etc
First and last letters
This game can be levelled up and down depending on who is playing.
Rules
– Choose a category like fruit, girl’s names, or animals (or if you want to make it tricky, capital cities, political leaders from history, or films of the ’80s)
– Someone starts by naming something from that category
– The next person needs to name something from the category that starts with the last letter of the last person’s word
– If you’re competitive, a person who can’t think of something is out
– If you’re not competitive or you’re working on your speech goals, help each other out.
Example
– Kangaroo
– Owl
– Lorikeet
– Tarantula
– A…
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE
This game needs some serious acting skills and storytelling abilities
Rules
– Each person takes turns thinking of one true thing that happens to them and invents two things that didn’t. They share these stories with the other people in the car
– The other people in the car need to guess which story is true
Example
– Last week at school, Mrs Smith came back from lunch with blue hair
– Once during art, I made a painting with mud as a joke, and the teacher loved it and put it up in the office
– My friend James once brought a pig into school for show and tell
Compliment
Another alphabet game, but this one if for warm fuzzy feelings
Rules
– Go around the group, using the alphabet to choose and give a compliment to someone else in the car
– Everyone is the winner
Example
– A is for how Awesome mum drives
– B is for how Brave Ahmed learned to ride his bike
– C is for courageous because Freya was so brave talking at assembly
Games can be a great way to sneak in work on your language goals and have a great time together while minimising screen time. Happy road tripping!
