Date: Fri 03-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: MICHEL

Quick Words:

car-vacation-games-kids

Full Text:

Car Games For Kids: Stimulating Active Minds In A Confined Space

BY MICHELE HOGAN

Planning a long car ride with kids? After the children tire of looking for

out-of-state license plates, have sung every car-song they know, and have

found the biggest truck on the road, it is time to come up with new ideas.

Here are a few fun and educational games that can relieve the tedium of long

drives with young children.

Word Association

The "word association game" is simple, yet interesting for any age. The first

person says any word they want. The next person says whatever word comes to

mind. And so on.

After five or six words, try to remember the whole chain of words. For more

challenge, try to remember the last ten or fifteen words spoken.

Children will be surprised by how well they do. Chains of words that have a

connection with each other are easy to remember because each word reminds you

of the next.

Sometimes someone says a word that doesn't seem to go with the last word at

all. Even though most people see no connection, something has put these two

words together for this person. There has to be a story or explanation for the

connection, and the story will help relieve the boredom of a long drive.

There are many variations that work well, such as thinking of new words that

go with the last two words spoken, or thinking of words that are very

different from the last word spoken, etc.

Another simple game is the "word backwards game." Try saying a word backwards

or a sentence backwards, and see if people can tell what you said. Try to

speak with vowels and tone of voice only. Can people understand you?

Math Games

A central skill for mathematics is the ability to see and follow patterns in

numbers. A simple one for the car is counting by twos, tens, fives, fours,

threes, sevens etc. This lays a foundation for learning multiplication facts.

Vary the game by sometimes counting backwards, and continuing into the

negative numbers.

Older kids can start with a number and multiply by two, then its product by

two as far as they can, or they can divide a number by two until it becomes a

tiny fraction.

Here's a great game that keeps kids busy for long periods while laying the

foundation for functional relationships between numbers. Pre-schoolers can

play along with older kids easily, and all you need is beads and string,

pencil and paper.

You need at least ten types of big beads and shoelaces (or something else easy

to string them on.)

Kids need only to be old enough to write and add numbers, and they are old

enough to create a bracelet using the Fibonacci sequence rule in mathematics.

The child assigns a number from zero to nine for each bead and writes down the

number assigned for each color bead. They pick any two beads to start the

bracelet. They add the two numbers assigned to these colors to get the next

colored bead. If the number is more than one digit, drop the ten's place digit

and just use the one's place digit.

For example: Black = 0, Red = 1, Blue = 2, Green = 9.

Say I picked blue and green as my first two beads. 2+9=11. I keep the last

digit, the number one, which calls for a red bead. Now I add 9+1=10. I keep

the last digit, the zero, which calls for a black bead. Now I add 1+0=1. At a

certain point, children will notice that they are getting a repeating pattern.

Then they can end their bracelet.

You can then ask them what happens if they use the same starting beads in

reverse order, or how many different starting pairs could they make.

Children can play for long periods of time, trying to get the shortest

pattern, or the longest pattern before it repeats.

(A nice short one is 2-6-8-4-2-6-8-4.) Keep some of the bead bracelets and the

children's list of numbers that go with them. When the children explain to

people how they made them, they are reviewing what they learned and

reinforcing the mathematics savvy they are developing.

The Quiet Game

This is a must for long car trips, especially when it gets close to nap time.

The quiet game is very simple. On the count of three, everyone tries to be as

quiet as possible for as long as possible. The last person to speak or make a

noise earns the right to ask anyone in the car not to say a word for sixty

seconds.