Car-tainment for a 4YO and 8YO

[Whattodonut]

Driving to Scotland tomorrow for a family holiday. Means 8 hours in the car spread across 2 journeys. How can I stop the inevitable boredom? Lots is not a particularly exciting journey (until we get closer to the end when there's a ferry)

Last long journey the 4YO was still napping so wasn't so bad.

Suggestions for games/ideas to keep them entertained without breaking my back.
DD8 loves to read- or listen to music on headphones- but will inevitably be when DD4 wants to chat to her.

Tablets would mean one each- which we don't have- else major fights as theyre too far apart to share.

We used to do a spotter list and the DCs had to tick off things as they saw them.
They'd count Eddie Stobart trucks and "Moo Trucks" (the ones with the Friesian pattern on the side).
In urban areas they'd compete on counting pubs on their side of the car to see who got the most, and on the motorway they'd count broken down vehicles on their side.
We'd all look for the strangest thing we could see from the car over the whole journey, which was great fun. Anything to keep them looking out of the car to minimise carsickness.
Snacks could only be requested on the hour or half hour (which meant they'd go absolutely silent for the preceding couple of minutes waiting for the clock to tick over).
We'd sweepstake the exact time of arrival at service stations and the destination to see who was closest.

Thanks. Snack timer sounds genius!

How did you do spotters for 4 year olds? She can't read yet or tell time so we're limited in games they can pleay together.

Audio books all the way. Our library has an app called Libby. Bluetooth from your phone to car speaker.

My big sister would draw me spotter lists - phone box, post box, lorry etc. Then I just crossed them off. I bet you could download/buy pages or books someone else has done or do your own.
We often just have really nice chats in the car, with the radio on. They ask about things being discussed, music etc, what they see.
I try to discourage too much reading as it can make you feel sick!

You could do the alphabet game with categories like films or food. A, apple,.B biscuit, C carrot ect?
we do eye spy with colours for the little one. Definitely get some audio books and a road trip playlist.

We keep a small box of toys tucked away so they don't have it until we are on long journeys, so the toys seem fresh. Things like a rubix cube, some stretchy animals, a couple of fact books full of pictures, a whiteboard and pen for 0s and Xs, top trumps.

If you only have one tablet, geat a headphone splitter so two sets of headphones can go in it, and download a movie. We have a rule that devices only come out after we've passed the half way mark on the journey.

Dh keeps a well stocked glove box and he does "tuck shop is now open" calls regularly, assumes a character or two as a shopkeeper and "sells" snacks to the kids.

We play "guess what animal I am" (aka 20 questions) a LOT.

We keep a crossword book in the passenger door for all journeys so a few of those get done as a family. Maybe see if you can find some child friendly ones and you call out the questions.

We are doing same journey soon with similar aged children.

We do have a tablet for each of them. However, we have previously given so long for each of them and put a film on and let them hold it between them.

This time I have packed a snack bag with their faves in, a new magazine each (they are so expensive now 😩), new book, Crayons (split a pack into 2 cheap pencil cases), colouring book and a kids puzzle book for the eldest.

Last year the above worked well, I put them in a back pack for each of them and they didn't know the contents until we were on the road.

I also did a picnic for them which they had when we stopped.

I also packed and will do this time, their fave Cuddly toys and blankets as they will snuggle and just watch the road/lorries etc

Pre-reading spotter lists were made from clipart of various things on a page, different for each of them so they weren't quite competing and could spot each other's if they liked.
We also played car snooker.
Look out for a red car, then this sequence of cars:
Yellow
Red
Green
Red
Brown
Red
Blue
Red
Pink
Red
Black

This is a good family game, especially when a particular colour car is elusive and you start negotiating whether a gold car counts as yellow or brown, and whether a rusty car counts.

Mine were young before the advent of screens but we went on a lot of long drives.
We listened as a family to audiobooks on the motorway stretches.
On smaller roads we would play I -Spy and twenty questions. We also had song compilations to listen to and sing along .
We would also spread out the stops as evenly as possible .
A bit of quarrelling is inevitable and time for a stop. We minimised the eating in the car .