Beyond I-spy. Verbal games to play on car journeys.

[3birthdaybunnies]

Dd2 gets car sick - is generally ok as long as she doesn't read/ look at a screen. Considering upcoming annual road trip, which verbal games do you play in the car? Dc are 8, 6& nearly 4. Youngest can manage easy letter games and often sleeps anyway.

To kick it off - I went to an island and took a... This game supposedly can only be played once as the trick is that it has to be something beginning with the same letter as your first name, so Sam can take a speedboat but Henry can't, but he can take a helicopter - keep going until everyone guesses pattern or gives up. Ours extended it by making up new rules - same letter as colour of clothes, which village going through etc.

Also another favourite is pink toads - where the answer to every question is 'pink toads', so what does your new teacher like to eat? What is your favourite food? Etc Take it in turn to ask a question, if you laugh or say something other than 'pink toads' you are out.

We also do spotting games so one person has to spot churches, another one bridges, someone else pylons (generally in France so lots of pylons) etc first person to 20 wins.

Some more ideas please?

The one where you randomly take turn to call out up to three numbers in order to get to 20. If two people count at the same time you go back to 1 again. Good because you don't need to look at anything and works best if you can't see the other people because you don''t know when they'll count.

Associations. So ... call out a world then next person calls out one associated with it. E.g., chips, fish, sea, water, wet, dry, towel, etc. Often ends up getting a bit cheeky! Alphabet game, e.g., animal alphabet ... actually played this in early labour ... alligator, bear, cat, etc., or food alphabet ... apple, banana, carrot, etc. My eldest play the mini game, which everytime they see a mini car they high 5 each other (this goes for all journeys). Of course there are songs and they have to be long! We have some family favourites. You can also get a good story cd. We once got a load of cheap ones but the Black Beauty story kept the children happy. The cds had songs in between. The cd could only stay on in short bursts about 20 minutes but was good to enforce some quiet time.

Spelling ... meant word not world ...

Guess what animal I am. Someone thinks of an animal and the others guess what it is by asking questions andggetting yes/no answers eg do you have 4 legs? Do you live in the Arctic? Etc. Even the 3 yo can play.

We count Eddie Stobbart lorries.

Not a game, but I've recently discovered borrowing audio books from local library for nominal fee (£1.30). We've had to stop DVDs in the car as DD also gets car sick, but the audio books have been a god-send.

Oh YES on the Stobarts!!

Guess a mile was a favourite when we were younger (6 kids in the back!).

"Stop the bus" is one DD likes. One person starts the bus and silently goes through the alphabet until the allocated bus conductor that round calls "Stop the bus". "Driver" calls out the letter they're on. Everyone now has to think of a boy's name, girl's name, placename, type of animal food, all beginning with that name (you can add categories as needed, book title, celebrity, song title, tv programme, city AND a country etc). First person to have all shouts "Stop the Bus" again. 5 points for first to finish, then all call their answers in turn by category and 5 points each for an allowable answer. (you can write down answers on sheets, and can have a point noter with a sheet, or it can all be done in heads, as car-sickness probability indicates).

Count the car colours - everyone picks a different coloured car and counts how many they see.

Yes, no black or white. Where the answer cannot by YNBor W to any question.

20 questions.

Silly sentences - read the three letters from the number plate of a passing car and make up a three word phrase with words starting with the letters.

Some great ideas thank you all. Have got some cd books from the charity shop and have got a pin from the library to download audio books. We'll be in France so not too many Eddie stobarts there. Ds usually likes 'reading' all the supermarket trucks but again not many asda and tesco lorries there. Will try out these new games too.

We play the opposite of the associations so we have to come up with things which have no connection at all, and if anybody can find a connection quickly a new thread is started.
e.g. fluff, raincoat, strawberry, wall...

Also (similar to pink toads but a bit more advanced) when you have to answer the question before. Clever construction of the questions by an adult can have hilarious consequences. Usually start with "What's your name?" and a random answer is given. The second question is then along the lines of "What do you call a big hairy ape?" and the child has to give their name as the answere, and so on.