Entertaining a child at a train/bus station

[cavycavy]

Ok, tomorrow I’m taking my 4yr old girl to a very exciting museum for the day. She is incredibly car sick so we are doing it all by train and one short bus journey which she’s much better at coping with sickness wise.

However, because I hate the panic of arriving at stations 2 mins before the train arrives I will probably get everywhere 15 minutes early. We live in a remote area so there will be several changes and we will be sitting and waiting a fair bit.

How can I keep her entertained while we wait??? Hints and tips much appreciated to keep whinging to a minimum and keep it as fun as possible.

Have obviously left this to the last minute. No time to run out and buy a scrap book or anything.....!!

We began to play 20 questions/Animal, vegetable, mineral around that sort of age. Or I went on a picnic and bought... where you have to remember a growing list (can make them alphabetical - apples, bacon, crumpets... to make it easier to remember).

Ah good one. Ok writing that on my list!!

My DD loves the yes/no game, eye spy (with colours) and ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

A pot of carrot and cucumber will keep her happy for a while and she enjoys doing dot-to-dot if I draw the outline of a letter or shape.

Have a wonderful time.

The squares game, where you take turns to connect dots to make squares.

Those rhymes/clapping games- who stole the cookie etc.

Nursery rhymes- children love round and round the garden etc, much older than you'd expect.

Oh, and drawing on each other's back, guessing heat was drawn.

Just a few story books? Slightly younger, but my DD who's 2.9 is very ants-in-her-pants and we recently had to have her eyes checked at hospital which involved sitting in a waiting room for 30-40 mins whilst her eye drops worked. The books (which I'd only thought to shove in my bag 5 mins before we left - so you're more prepared than me ) killed some time, as did walking to the on-site shop to buy a sandwich (food always a good option!). She also quite likes eye-spy... Is she the type to be easily distracted by what's going on around her? My DD is also going through the asking questions about everything stage so that also used up some time!

Could you buy her a comic if any of the stations has a shop? Plenty to do in those & will seem like a huge treat!

I don't drive so long walks and waits for the often delayed public transport are the norm for my 4 year old. To keep him entertained (and stop him whinging about being bored every 30 seconds ) I play games with him;
Eye spy - use colours of letters are still a bit difficult.
Guess the animal/superhero I'm describing.
Count cars - pick a colour each and whoever counts the most cars in their colour wins.

And my personal favourite game when I've had enough of the rest is Who can stay quietest the longest - it never lasts more than a minute or two (at best) but those seconds are bliss when the games are getting a bit boring for you haha.

Ah yes must take a pad and a few pens so we can play a few games that way!

Thank you!

Oooh yes I Spy! Reminds me of those Ispy books I had as a kid when you’d check the box when you see something on the list. Left it too late to get one now though......

..... I think I’ve just invented an amazing app for travelling!?!

Getting her to spot signs etc. Walking the whole length of the platform to see the train traffic lights, tracks coming together,
CCTV monitor that the driver uses. Working out where all the other trains are going, while looking at the map of routes.

And that’s all without any preparation or food!

They love incredibly dull word games at that age I think.

Eye spy - either by letter or colour.
20 questions - a person or animal
I'm thinking of....-basically 20 questions except you give clues instead of her asking questions, it's a bit easier.
The Vicar's cat - go through the alphabet picking a name and adjective for each letter so the Vicar's cat was an awful cat and her name was Angela etc.
The alphabet game - go through the alphabet with food/animals/anything.
Make a story - a line each to make a story.
What rhymes with?

Wow more ideas thank you!!!

At this rate the journey will be more fun than the venue!!

Zooop I was thinking that about getting really ‘into’ the workings of the train station, until I realised I know basically nothing about trains. But I reckon I could wing it to a 4 year old.

I’m frantically looking for apps about how trains work now

Make your own eye spy checklist on a pad - or even with your daughter as part of the journey. Ask her what things she thinks you may see to build your list (I.e a red car, a dog, a lady with an umbrella, a police car etc).

Have a lovely day.

Oooh yeah!!!!

I could print something off actually...

Sit and have a conversation with her.

Give her a big apple, to eat like a pony. Mine always took ages to eat apples.

Sticker books are our go-to and they're often sold in station stationers.

Clearly no-one dares to mention a tablet or phone. We have playtime island (free from the BBC) on ours, and I was very glad of it the day a 20 minute wait at a station became 2 hours...

Ok perfect thank you!

Loads of ideas here. Will try to come back and update on the ones we liked best!

entertainme

I’ve got a few episodes of her fave programme downloaded for that purpose! Sadly my phone only holds its charge for about an hour when in constant use so it’s only for emergency boredom situation like a long delay. I’ll be taking my charger just in case!

I’m hoping there will be another child doing a similar journey to us that she can chat to.

(Anyone fancy it?!)

'Give her a big apple, to eat like a pony. Mine always took ages to eat apples'

I used to do this too! An apple could last half an hour when they were little. I once told DC3 he couldn't have a banana as his train snack because 'they're too quick'!

NuffsaidSam yey! Didn't realise it was a recognised technique

Lol..... ok so food that requires time and concentration to eat.

I now know why my grandad would hold ‘slowest polo sucking’ competitions in car journeys!

My dad used to make bingo cards for us when we did car journeys as children - had things like a postbox, fire engine, bridge etc...

If you've got access to a printer, you could probably come up with something similar if you know the train stations and what you're likely to see in the area.

similar thing to the ispy books. we used to play train bingo with my 2 when they were a similar age. draw out maybe 10 things you are likely to see both inside and outside the train or bus and either cross off as you go along or count how many. (examples: a bridge, a church, some graffitti, a person wearing headphones, a building site/crane etc)