We spend a lot of time in the truck and people ask us, “What do you do with all that time on the road?” So, I thought I’d write a little about some of the games we play in the truck to pass the time.
The kids always have an array of games, activity, reading and coloring books in the car as well to keep them busy as well as road-schooling activities and Junior Ranger Program books. But, we also have book after book on car games and the ones listed here are the family favorites. We keep the games simple for all ages of fun. These games have been fun for all of us from 4 to 42.
The RVGypsies top six car games for all ages are:
#6 Rhyming game- One of us comes up with a funny word and the rest of us try to come up with as many rhymes as we can. This game gets very silly. This is a favorite game of Sawyer’s.
#5 What’s in the truck game- this one we came up with ourselves and we’ve been playing this for years. Whenever a semi truck goes by or a tanker truck we simply call out what we think is inside. For example: I say “I see a truck I think it is carrying cookies!” Then each person or all at once start saying what they think is in the truck. It is fun and can be done any time and pretty much anywhere.
#4 ABC Games- Anything having to do with finding letters on signs, trucks, and license plates. We don’t do this as a competition because it makes it too hard for Sawyer and therefore not much fun. We do it more as a team to find letters that the kids recognize anywhere we go. We also say the letters out loud one at a time and the kids think of a word that starts with that letter and then we practice the sound too. Good phonics lesson. We sometimes try to think of as many words as we can that start with the letter and the sillier the words get the more fun the game.
#3 Rainbow cars- For this game we each find cars in the colors of the rainbow starting with red, then orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue and last purple. Purple is the hardest, of course. Robby almost always wins this game because he is very “creative” with the colors of cars he finds, sometimes brown is orange, that sort of creativity. We have vowed to someday have a purple car so that it is easier for families to play this game. We all have fun trying to find cars in colors other than black and white. It’s not that easy, black and white cars are everywhere!
#2 What happened to your homework game? – This is a favorite of the whole family for sure and highly requested by the kids. We take turns pretending to be the teacher. The teacher asks the others one by one in a gruff voice “Sawyer, what happened to your homework?” Sawyer then spins some tall tale as to what happened to his homework and why he can’t turn it in. It is quite common for bears to eat it or to drop it in a volcano. Joss had to use her homework once to make a sail for a boat to rescue orphans from a deserted island. Robby got lost in the woods and had to use his homework as toilet paper. Everyone in the family works hard to think of new, creative and original ideas for “losing” their homework. We usually have to pause the game for extreme laughter and then pick the game again after we’ve all calmed down. This game is really good for expanding the kid’s creative ideas and they love it.
#1 Animal, Vegetable and Mineral – Another family favorite for all and great for getting kids to think outside the box. We don’t have really strict rules for the kids since they are still young, especially Sawyer. We pretty much just let him guess and quite often he guesses things out of the blue and gets it right! This one is a little more complicated but here is how we play it:
- I spy version- The person who is “it” spies something and tells if it is animal, vegetable or mineral. Then each person takes turns asking yes or no questions. If they get a “yes” answer they get to ask a question again until they get a “no.” Each person takes turns until someone guesses the correct item. Everyone except Sawyer cannot guess what the thing is until they have a “yes” answer first.
- The other version you can just think of anything you want and start out by telling the others if it is Animal, Vegetable or mineral.
It is best to keep the things you are picking simple and make sure you can answer all sorts of questions about it. Sometimes we try to get too fancy and can’t answer all the questions and the game gets frustrating for the ones guessing. We don’t recommend this.
That’s it, our top favorite car games, give them a try on your next ride in the car and let us know how your family likes them. Most important, HAVE FUN!
Click here to get back to the FAQ page.
