10 Things to do to make your next car trip fun, educational and entertaining!

     

      Life is busy, I know most of you are juggling school runs for multiple children and locations, football, tennis, dance, music, gymnastics, swimming, the list goes on… Chances are your child is spending a few minutes just sitting in the car or stroller every day. Here are ten games to help your child develop while on the move, whether it is a drive down to Dunsborough or to the park, keep your little one busy, entertained and learning! Remember repetition is needed for all their skills to develop, so don’t just play a game once, if they show interest do it over and over and over and over!

     1.       Animal Sound I spy – ask your child what sound a c – a – t makes. Sound out the letter sounds, not names and if they make the right animal sound, you know they have made the connection between the letters and formed the correct word. This is great practice for preparing them for reading phonetically.

     2.       If they are good at the above game you can ask them what letter sound does a word starts with. I.e. ‘What letter sound does cat start with’. Remember this is sounds, not letter names. The obvious progression, have them sound out short phonetic words. ‘how do you sound out dog?’ d-o-g etc. You can also play the old I Spy game in a simplified version: 'find me something beginning with c'.

     3. True or False: Test what they know and teach them some new facts. You can also test their comprehension and quiz them on a story you read that day or the night before. See what they have understood or remembered, you may hear some interesting interpretations of the story or be entertained by what they have taken away from it! 

     4.       Play ‘What is the right thing to do?’ You can pose all sorts of behavioural/ social questions to them, you probably have a fair idea of what kind of situations your child might benefit from talking through. There is a big range of things that the children go through from the youngest ones lashing out physically when in confrontational situations to the older ones forming cliques, excluding children etc. You can make these pretty leading questions so they know what the obvious answer is and accentuate the point you are trying to make. When they get it right, you can agree with them and point out why they are so right to reinforce the correct behaviour.

E.g.

·         ‘If Sam has the puzzle that you want, do you go and push him out of the way and snatch it or do you wait until he has finished and then ask him if you can have a turn?’

·          ‘If you are playing with your best friend and Sophie wants to play with you as well, do you tell Sophie that you already have a friend to play with and run away from her or do you play all together because it is nice to be friends with everyone and more fun with more friends?’

·         If you need help or want to tell me something while I am speaking to someone else, do you wail like a baby and tug on my arm or do you say “excuse me Mummy, I need help’ and wait for me to finish what I am doing?

     5.       A bit of counting practice at the lights. ‘Let’s see how much we can count to before the lights change to green.’

     6.       Singing! We really believe that singing things makes it easy to remember. Heck, before I was a preschool teacher I would have had to think long and hard to tell you all the planet names, now I can list them all in order without a second thought, all thanks to a little song! Teach them what you know and I will make sure to get some videos of the children singing our favourite songs up soon!

     7.       Once your child knows a few songs, hum the tune and have them guess what the song is. In the class we play the song on the keyboard and have them guess what the song is. They get pretty fast with a bit of practice!

     8.       One for children who have insecurities being left: On the way to school talk about what they would like to do first. I had one little boy last year who would decide in the car on the way to school with his mum, what flag he would like to colour in.  He started the day confidently with a clear idea of what he wanted to do. If asking your child what they want to do first is too broad a question, figure out something they like to do like flags, puzzles, sewing, making an animal, drawing, writing etc. and just ask them what variety of this they will start the day with.

     9.       For the way home: Ask your child what the best thing they did at school was, what made them the most happy? Studies show that reflecting on the things that we are thankful for or have enjoyed make us happier people. It is also more likely to give you an insight into what they have done and get them talking than asking ‘how was your day?’ or ‘what did you do today?’ If they struggle to answer you at first, tell them what was the best part of your day and why. They may copy your answers at first, but with time they should start to give it more thought over the day and remember little things to tell you.

    10.    In the morning, quiz your child on what day of the week it is, what month, what season it is, what the date is and what the weather is like. Start with the easy ones like the weather and give them hints like what the day before was if they need it. If they remember what they have talked about with you, until they do the days of the week activity at Smart Start, they will be sure to impress their teacher!