The holiday season means a lot of different things to a lot of different people but one of the unifying, and often unpleasant, aspects of this time of year is the miles and miles of asphalt our automobiles will traverse. Because we all will spend our fair share of quality time inside our family cars over the next few weeks we would be well served to find something for our kids to do with themselves!
For the older toddler set, consider this idea:
Ever notice all those black and white speed limit, green exit and orange construction signs? Surely you have seen one or two of those recently! Put those handy side-of-the-road placards to use as a fun and educational way to pass the time during your next road trip with your toddler(s). In addition to the signage, there are plenty of long-haul trucks with big letters, words, symbols and numbers in perfect elevated view for you little bundles of joy snug in their car seats. All this equates to hundreds of letters and numbers scattered across North American highways and bi-ways, just waiting to be used as learning tools for traveling families.
Use these letters, symbols and numbers in this way:
1. Ask your children if they can spot an “A”, “2”, etc.
2. Challenge your kids to think of words that start with the letters they see.
3. Have your children seek out their age (2, 3, 4, etc) and letters in their names.
For the older kids (maybe 6 and up) who can see clearly out the window, encourage them to keep a log of all the state license plates they spot. For families with multiple older kids, this can turn into a friendly competition of who can log the most states (it may also require that you drive in the center lane of a 3+ lane highway so the kids have separate pools of cars and license plates!). Reinforce this geography lesson by asking your kids to figure out which of them saw the license plate from the state or province farthest away from where you are or live. Also have them make a list of all the places they have visited in their life and see if they can spot the tags from those states and provinces as well.
Using what the road gives you will make the time your family must spend in the car a lot more bearable for all involved.