Suggestions for Car travel activities for a 5 year old please.

[AGirlsGotToDo]

Just that really. We are going on holiday in the Summer holidays and the car journey can be anywhere from a 3 hour journey on a good day or 6 on a bad day. I need to keep two kids entertained some how. They don't sleep in the car and will be awake the whole time.

TIA

Tablets or portable DVD players

Ipad, looking out the window type games if you are motivated enough like car snooker ( order of colours) i spy, that type of things.

As Hazel above said or "just look out the window and look at the trees" as my mum used to say

We do I spy, then find an object for each letter of the alphabet in order (So you keep looking until you see something beginning with A, then someone else has to find something beginning with B, etc) Gets tricky with the last few letters so we allow car numberplates/shapes on road signs (e.g. crossroads) for X, Y etc. This keeps you going for ages and if you get bored you can just stop playing but the DC will keep going.

20 questions as well so you pick an item and then everyone asks questions but the person in the hot seat can only say yes or no. To keep it simple stick to a theme like animals or things inside the car.

Audio books/kids' podcasts?

Making up stories about the people in different cars like I think that lady is moving for a brand new life at the seaside. I think that man is a spy escaping a load of pursuers. I think that family are going home after a holiday where they wrestled with alligators etc etc.

Make up a sentence or word using the letters in number plates.

Make a word into a descriptive acronym. So "Dog" becomes "Digging Over Gardens" or similar.

Audible .

We do lots of quizzes. Things like "name 7 farm animals" or "name 5 types of tree".

DS likes Play Foam and you can get a travel set of it. I think it’s called Play Foam on the Go. He also likes his Magna Doodle. Melissa and Doug reusable sticker pads are good and not too expensive.

DD always used to have an Usborne sticker book for journeys at that age.

Mine aren’t much older and each take a bag in the car - books, pens, drawing/colouring pad, small toys etc. I usually chuck a blind bag at them at some point, copious amounts of staggered snacks, music and audible as required.

They quite enjoy I spy, the ministers cat, random challenges like ‘how many orange cars/campervan/lorries etc can you spot’. When we’re getting desperate it’s “Oh my word did you see the T Rex in the field there?!” They catch on quickly and their ridiculous spots are fun. And when we’re really desperate we play the pop game - basically make up a story about poos and some fabulous poo adventure...you could substitute with anything though 😅

Audiobook
“Help” plan what you will do when you arrive (maybe last hour) - get everything out of the car and put away then diner or everything out then a game or run around a bit before anything?

Audio books, make up some bingo sheets with things to spot.
I tend to go with the "less is more" theory in situations like this - if they know you've got an endless supply of snacks and activities they don't concentrate or spend much time on one thing before they want to move on to the next thing. You could ask them to pack up a small bag of favourite toys, pens etc.
Download a couple of films onto a tablet with headphones will pass a couple of hours on too.

Lots of fantastic suggestions. Thank you all so much. I'll get buying some stuff! Make them both up a little bag each.

I just plug mine into an iPad I’m afraid! Feel very lazy now...

Please don't just fob them off with screens, there are some great ideas here. Screens negatively influence children to become passive and it impedes their ability to concentrate.

We do things like name an animal/food/friend beginning with each letter of the alphabet

We play "spot the yellow car"

Mine used to have a car bingo game, would be easy to make your own, where they had to find things but the things changed every time.

I've just remembered "imaginary hide and seek" which is hilarious. It's like 20 questions in that the person in the hot seat can only answer yes/no to questions. But instead of identifying a thing, you have to identify a place where somebody is hiding, which could be anywhere on Earth from the mundane (under my bed) to the famous (in Buckingham Palace) to the silly (in brother's stinky sock drawer) and anything in between.

When we traveled long distances in the car as children we were told to ‘sit still and shut up’ or we wouldn’t get ice creams when we arrived.

Toys will just get dropped which will prompt whinging and some interesting yoga moves from the front passenger trying to retrieve them. Just give them a tablet, a selection of downloaded things to watch or listen to. Get them kids headphones otherwise you will lose your shit by the 15th round of the paw patrol theme tune.